Good sales pitch. OP, Frank is not the end all be all. I've yet to see any data on his cams reliability. Make your own decision.
I don't think you know anything about me, narongc. Although I do 'pitch' my own products, the ones who own my products pitch them more than I do. I consider reputation important and it shows in my product line. There are two mantras that if you apply them, you eliminate the question marks for sub-par workmanship.
"Do it once and do it right"
"Build it like your gonna buy it"
The small proof we have is over 2000 cam kits sold, with over 350 personally installed. We have a grand total of 7 failures, 4 from operator error (loss of oil or water) and those have been returned to service. Of the three remaining cams, one was grenaded racing, one used 507.00 5-30 oil(wrong stuff) for 234,000 miles and only one, we have no good reason it failed.
We designed many facets of the cam kit, including the reusable bolts, the cam bearing mod, our own cam design and with a little help from our friends, the method to set torsion value.
It is very correct to say I am actually in a 'hobby gone wild' business, that I did for my own benefit before I performed as a business. We have a penchant for getting it right and pulling out all the stops to tweak improvements until we can't find any more.
Nate 660: Our interest in getting the right parts and the right service is not a point of argument. I certainly find the 'paint and pray' method has one big problem. It's harder to do. That's all. We loan the tools and it makes the job not only easier, but safer. Also, if you were to listen to someone like me, who not only builds the parts, but has many improved methods for installation, you would be better for it. I know where all the pitfalls are.
Even after you have the belt into position, you still have to set the torsion value and that is not guess work. That requires the use of the VCDS or equivalent. Your car may run, but in order to get it to run at peak efficiency, there are three values to set in the engine module. 1) torsion value in block 4, 2) liter per hour fuel usage in block 15 and 3) injector balance in block 13.
These three values, which you cannot possibly set by guessing, give you the parameters to get the highest fuel economy and injector balance numbers for your engine. There is no 'one number' that is correct for torsion value (cam to timing belt position), but a movement as small as .5+/- can make 4 mpg difference.
So, if you prefer to get the best out of your engine, it will pay you to learn what I know.
The next thing is the cam itself. We designed a cam that adds $400 to the cost of rebuilding the PD motor, with the purpose of not doing it again any time soon. We have a LOT of people that have exceeded 250,000 additional miles and say it looks like it's still breaking in. Our mileage king at the moment is 440,000 additional miles.
I am not going to give you grief for using your imagination to get the job done, but we also loan the tools, so forget $200(some of those tools are unnecessary), it's more like $30 loaner fee and well worth the cost.
Next thing... wouldn't you like to know how to do the job without removing the engine mounts and having to support the engine with a support or jack? We developed that idea, too. It makes the job safer, cheaper and quicker.
If you installed one of the many stock aftermarket cams, it is likely that your life-expectancy will be shorter than you would hope for. I recommend you check for galling on the base circle of the cam lobes in 25,000 miles and if it makes it that far, again at 50,000 miles. That is the first indicator of the cam wearing out. Too many fail to make 100,000, which is a shame.
And don't bite on the baloney about 'billet'. Virtually every single cam sold today, Febi, Estes, Kolbenschmidt, Estas, AMC(Although a poor copy) and several more, are the same billet design. There is one reason they are all billet: It's cheaper to build and as effective as a cast steel cam.
I wish you good luck with your build, but you do need to follow some good advice. It will help you.
For the less fluent: If your point requires asterisks, you don't have a very good argument.