Note on cam profiles

I was asked about cam profiles by a reader called Mark. Mark has a Tiger 900 and says it is fitted with'green'cams. I looked in my factory manual and see the cam profiles are listed as the same as the Thunderbird. Here's a photo, showing 'blue'  lift 7mm and duration the same.

These are the'blue' profiles. I visited the factory in 1995 and I remember seeing they had a little display stand showing the three cam profiles then in use. They were color coded blue green and red, with green being the most common across their modular range. As i have previously written, this is the profile used for the early Trophy 1200 as well. Mark may have a bike that a previous owner swapped to Trident/Daytona/Sprint/Speed Triple cam spec. I believe cams had a blob of red, green or blue paint applied by the factory  to identify them when new. However, the paint on my bikes' camshafts has faded or dispersed over the years so I can't confirm this. 

Here is a photo of the manual page contrasting Super III (red)and Speed Triple (green) cam lift and duration.