Many have already explained the larger lifter bore is an advantage and not a myth, but shelf cams are never going to push the envelope as far as acceleration etc. They are generic, high volume production camshafts, they only thing they'll tweak is the lobe separations and how the lobes are paired...
OK, fair to an extent...strangely enough somehow the Chevy and Ford grinds end up with the higher lift lobes though...presumably out of the very same lobe catalog I have here, so why isn't CompCams putting the higher lift lobes on Mopar cams???
I mean like you said:
"...They are generic, high volume production camshafts, they only thing they'll tweak is the lobe separations and how the lobes are paired..."
...so what is the reason for pairing the lower lift lobes for our small block engines? Is it poor head flow? Is it bad geometry??? That's the depth of an answer I'm looking for...
Bottom line being: the "shelf cam" argument here holds no water, as I just pointed out the other guys somehow end up running those lobes...so what gives? That's really what my question is about...would you not expect any manufacturer to want to optimize their sales regardless of what engine their product goes into? Makes no sense to me to want to sell less product...after all, if more lift was a bad thing we'd all be running our stock cams! LOL
