PTS Flowbench Forum

JakesPorting wrote:I found some of the things in this that were interesting.

http://www.harveycrane.com

"We asked Harvey if there was any one individual who he considered as “Father of the Racing Cam Business”. Without hesitation Harvey credits Ed Winfield as one of the pioneers of the racing industry, and the man who “invented” the racing cam business!

Ed Winfield was born in LaCanada, California in 1901.

“Winfield’s homemade cams were available in two basic profiles: Semi-Race and Full Race. After running both he decided he needed a grind that fit comfortably between the two profiles, for different track lengths and driver styles. He came up with a third master that had more duration and lift than the Semi Race grind, but less than the Full Race. He used the Full-Race master lobe for the intake lobe, and the third cam lobe master as an exhaust lobe. This mix and match of profiles he called a “Three-Quarter Race Cam”. Not only had Winfield created the first cam lobe profile for a specific racing application, he had unwittingly coined the first catchy racing cam marketing name for a business that would one day thrive on tricky product names that were sometimes pure nonsense. Ed said he didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s how it happened!, Harvey reflected.

Three-Quarter Race has since become a sort of generic term for a camshaft that works acceptably in everyday driving, officially organized and sanctioned drag racing events as well as impromptu street acceleration contests."