I think Melling and other oEM suppliers use blanks designed for the cams and reheat treat if they grind through the core surface into the soft material. Unfortunately a lot of regrinders don't do that and have a lot of failures. I've had 3 now....first two were disasters, latest is general wear on all lobes .that reduced the lift in only minutes of running. Melling was the prime supplier to Olds back when I was there. I had one of the old Duntov 30-30 solids cams in my 60 283 Corvette made by Melling, too. Nice cam... For those of you that remember Nascar in the 80's when Bill Elliott went to the front of the class with his #9 Coors Tbird.....but the trick was in some of the first NC machined port designs done at Melling. When Ford Motorsports approached him to take him into their sponsored friends, he told them "Where were you when I needed you? Now I don't....but Ford sure needed him..finally got to him somehow.......then came Roush......you know the rest of the story.
Before August 1989 the cheapest place to buy Ram Air IV rocker arms was the Pontiac dealer. Pontiac used to sell a service repair kit for the Ram Air IV that included one rocker arm, rocker arm ball and push rod !!! It was cheaper than any aftermarket rocker arm at the time, even though they were sold as singles. I guess Pontiac sold the service repair kit at no profit. The camshafts from the dealer were very expensive.
