P.T. Barnum would be proud that the shop took his advice to heart.
Only very radical cams such as the old Iskenderian "Hard Face Overlay" racing cams from 60 years ago got material welded onto the lobes. Those cams came with a bold face warning on the timing card- - - - "NEVER IDLE THIS CAM!" It was made to go fast for a very short time. Sane people just take a few thousandths off the base circle of the lobes and duplicate the timing and lift of the original cam, or make minor modifications to the lobes without radically changing the profile. In the late 1940's and early 50's Johnson Tappets made overlength adjustable lifters for flathead Ford engines to accommodate radical regrinds like the Iskenderian "404" cam that had lobes that looked like a rectangle grafted onto a semi-circle. It basically slapped the valve wide open, kept it there for a while, and slammed it back down onto the seat. "404" was the valve lift in thousandths, which was unheard of for a flathead V8 at the time. The lift rate was so radical that the cam required lifters with a radius on the bottom, pinned into position so they couldn't rotate. Lifter and cam lobe wear was a major concern, but those engines usually blew up long before they wore out.
Anybody with more than three brain cells to rub together doesn't attempt to put a radical lobe profile on a reground cam- - - -they buy an unturned billet and have the timing and lift ground to order. The last time I priced a billet blank from Comp Cams, it cost $3K for a solid cylinder of steel with a distributor drive gear on one end and a timing sprocket hub on the other. Then Comp would get paid an outrageous sum to whittle on the area in between to make it look like a camshaft.
The CCS-1 timing and lift is posted prominently on the Melling website for anyone with a little time and the incentive to to make a few mouse clicks and read them. Basically, it's a Corvette/261 solid lifter cam with a few degrees of duration added to the exhaust lobe to assist in scavenging of the exhaust gases, which assists in cylinder filling from overlap with the intake valve. Stock stovebolt cams have virtually no overlap, where both intake and exhaust valves are slightly open at the top of the exhaust stroke. The inertia of exhaust gases creates a slight vacuum in the cylinder as the intake begins opening, which accelerates the incoming intake charge.
Jerry
