Agreed, beehives have no true harmonic frequency. The varing coil diameter stops the development of a standing wave in the spring. I ran into this at my first engineering job out of school. With a strobe you can see the standing wave that is created in a cylindrical spring at the harmonic frequency. It never occurred in a beehive shape, at least not in the rpm range an engine runs in.
Per a true builder:
I have been in the business of building engines for
over 40 years, building street performance and bracket
racing engines. Very few things come along that really
impress me. For me seeing is believing.
That’s the case with the Beehive Springs from
COMP Cams. When I first heard of these springs,
I just didn’t see how they could work better than
conventional springs. The only way I was going to
know was to see for myself.
I don’t know who came up with the design, they
looked funny and I was very skeptical until I installed a
set in one of my small block engines. I soon found out
that they really work. In my engines the Beehive works
with 50 to 75 lbs less tension than conventional dual
springs, and they deliver 10 hp or more. Not only that,
sometimes conventional valve springs allow valve float
around 6700 rpm, but with the Beehive we can turn up
to 7500 rpm before valve float.
I now regularly use Beehives along with hydraulic
roller cam designs in the popular 383 small block
engines I build. The Beehive and hydraulic roller cam
combination delivers as much as 40-50 more horse-
power than I ever saw in conventional setups. Installing
the spring is less trouble too, because it is easier to
compress single spring than a double or double with
dampener spring.
Would you recommend this product to others?
Yes, COMP put a lot of science into the Beehive
design, and like I said before, I’m not usually easily
impressed, but this spring really does the job.
Installation of the Beehive Springs is a
straight forward process. Anyone with
engine building know-how will find these
springs to be a little less difficult to install
because the compression factor is less.
That’s part of the uniqueness of this
spring, because although the compres-
sion factor is less, there is no trade-off in
the performance side because the
Beehive Spring is the ultimate in design
and materials.
The material of the Beehive is a
proprietary alloy that’s made in a patent-
ed “Super Clean™” process that’s
designed to significantly eliminate more
impurities from the spring wire than any
other process used anywhere else in
valve spring production.
Other advantages include the ovate
wire shape that reduces dynamic stress-
es experienced by the spring during its
lift cycle which is typically concentrated
on the outer diameter of the wire. The
ovate wire also facilitates heat dissipation
much more readily than a conventional
round wire design, thus resulting in
longer life than traditional springs.
The Beehive shape of the spring
increases harmonic resistance, giving it
much greater stability as the engine revs.
The varying diameter of the Beehive shape
enables the spring to better handle these
damaging harmonics, resulting in
increased high rpm horsepower and the
durability necessary for street applications.
Spring weight is important because it
means less reciprocating mass in motion.
The Beehive shape provides a double
weight savings; not only does it reduce
the weight of the spring itself, but it also
allows use of a smaller, lighter valve
spring retainer. Reduction of spring mass
has the added advantage of requiring
less spring pressure to maintain total
valve control.
JOE SHERMAN
JOE SHERMAN RACING
SANTA ANA, CA
WINNER OF 2002
ENGINE MASTER
CONTEST
