3 - All of the Aliens tested had an effective cam angle greater than the angle of the other cams. This means that before deformation of the cam lobe even begins, the cam is closer to the point of reaching the critical angle of 35 degrees. The higher the starting angle, the less metal needs to be deformed to reach the critical point. Which again, means less force required.

Even if the method of measuring the affect of the misdrilled axles on effective cam angle is imprecise, there's little doubt that in almost all of these samples, it resulted in a larger starting cam angle. Perhaps we don't have enough precision to predict the variance from cam to cam, without laying the lobes flat on a scanner bed, but on average, they were pretty consistently off in the direction of too high a cam angle.