Competition Cams, Inc., often styled as COMP Cams, is a specialty performance

automotive aftermarket The automotive aftermarket is the secondary parts market of the automotive industry, concerned with the manufacturing, remanufacturing, distribution, retailing, and installation of all vehicle parts, chemicals, equipment, and accessories, ''afte ...

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

, and

kart A go-kart, also written as go-cart (often referred to as simply a kart), is a type of small sports car, close wheeled car, open-wheel car or quadracycle. Go-karts come in all shapes and forms, from non-motorised models to high-performance ...

parts manufacturer. The company has five US locations including headquarters in

Olive Branch, Mississippi Olive Branch is the List of municipalities in Mississippi, sixth most populous city in Mississippi, US, located in DeSoto County, Mississippi, DeSoto County. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the population was 39,711. Olive Branch ...

History

Although founded in 1976, Competition Cams wasn't incorporated until 1977, when it began by selling

valve train A valvetrain is a mechanical system that controls the operation of the intake and exhaust valves in an internal combustion engine. The intake valves control the flow of air/fuel mixture (or air alone for direct-injected engines) into the combus ...

products through satellite distribution stores. The company has acquired manufacturers of transmissions,

electronic fuel injection Fuel injection is the introduction of fuel in an internal combustion engine, most commonly automotive engines, by the means of a fuel injector. This article focuses on fuel injection in reciprocating piston and Wankel rotary engines. All co ...

, and

nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or factitious air, among others, is a chemical compound, an Nitrogen oxide, oxide of nitrogen with the Chemical formula, formula . At room te ...

systems through its holding group, COMP Performance Group, consisting of 13 companies. In the late 1980s, the company contributed to the

Specialty Equipment Market Association Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) of the automotive aftermarket was formed in 1963 by Paul Schiefer, Roy Richter, Ed Iskenderian, Els Lohn, Willie Garner, Bob Hedman, Robert E. Wyman, John Bartlett, Phil Weiand Jr, Al Segal, Dean Moo ...

(SEMA), and its annual trade show in the

Las Vegas Convention Center The Las Vegas Convention Center (commonly referred to as LVCC) is a convention center in Winchester, Nevada. It is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. As one of the largest convention centers in the world, it ...

. Competition Cams was started by John McWhirter, Ivars Smiltniks, Tom Woitesek, and Bob Woodard. Former owners, Ron Coleman and Paul Brothers were inducted into the

SEMA Sama (; ) is a Sufi ceremony performed as part of the meditation and prayer practice dhikr. Sama means "listening", while dhikr means "remembrance".During, J., and R. Sellheim. "Sama" Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition. Ed. P. Bearman, T. B ...

Hall of Fame in 2000 and 2005, respectively. In January 2020, Competition Cams was acquired by private equity group Industrial Opportunity Partners.

Industry contributions

COMP Cams created the "Spintron" engine testing system, which uses an

electric motor An electric motor is a machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a electromagnetic coil, wire winding to gene ...

to drive a dummy engine outfitted with high-speed sensors and cameras to record data about the valvetrain dynamics. The test observes valve-spring seat pressure, coil dynamics,

camshaft A camshaft is a shaft that contains a row of pointed cams in order to convert rotational motion to reciprocating motion. Camshafts are used in piston engines (to operate the intake and exhaust valves), mechanically controlled ignition syst ...

and pushrod flex, and lifter movement to identify problems in the engine's performance. A partnership between

Richard Childress Racing Richard Childress Racing (RCR) is an American professional stock car racing team that currently competes in the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The team is based in Welcome, North Carolina, and is owned and operated by Richard C ...

, Okuma, and COMP Cams was established to develop the process for grinding camshafts for NASCAR engines, with an Okuma GC34NH

cylindrical grinder The cylindrical grinder is a type of grinding machine used to shape the outside of an object. The cylindrical grinder can work on a variety of shapes, however the object must have a central axis of rotation. This includes but is not limited to such ...

; a CNC grinder. COMP Cams developed the process of ion

nitriding Nitriding is a heat treating process that diffusion, diffuses nitrogen into the surface of a metal to create a case-hardening, case-hardened surface. These processes are most commonly used on low-alloy steels. They are also used on titanium, alum ...

for camshafts, or Pro Plasma Nitriding. This is a 36-hour process that uses pulsed nitrogen plasma in a vacuum controlled environment to embed chains of nitrogen ions into the camshaft surface approximately .008” - .010” deep, significantly hardening the surface. COMP Cams also developed a new surface finishing process called Micro Surface Enhancement (MSE). By removing peaks from the

surface finish Surface finish, also known as surface texture or surface topography, is the nature of a interface (matter), surface as defined by the three characteristics of lay, surface roughness, and waviness.. It comprises the small, local deviations of a ...

(speaking in

nanoscale Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

terms), it improves

bearing surface A bearing surface in mechanical engineering is the area of contact between two objects. It usually is used in reference to bolted joints and bearing (mechanical), bearings, but can be applied to a wide variety of engineering applications. The choic ...

performance and life span of camshaft lobes and

bearing journal Plain bearing on a 1906 S-Motor locomotive showing the axle, bearing, oil supply and oiling pad A sliding table with four cylindrical bearings A wheelset from a Great Western Railway (GWR) wagon showing a plain, or journal, bearing end A pl ...

s. The appearance of this new process is somewhat reminiscent of the development of superfinishing in the 1930s in the respect that a new metalworking process for surface finish improvement was developed in the quest for better shaft life span in automobile engines.

Sponsorship

Competition Cams does not sponsor a

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

team directly, but has access to advertising through a deal with NASCAR where the COMP Cams contingency sticker is placed on every NASCAR race car. Contingency sponsorship is a common form of 'after the fact' sponsorship whereby racers place stickers on their vehicles from companies that post monetary awards to racing teams for winning, in exchange for visibility and the right to use images of the driver and their car in promotional literature and advertising. Similarly, COMP Cams also posts contingency awards to drag racers and various other classes of auto racing.

References

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External links

Competition Cams company website
Auto parts suppliers of the United States Automotive motorsports and performance companies Manufacturing companies based in Memphis, Tennessee Manufacturing companies established in 1976