PDXStang503

*updated*

hey guys im working on my mild build and looking for a cam .

my mods are 83 GT 302 motor with a 600 cfm holly, weiand stealth manifold, 1 inch spacer, gt40p heads , 1 5/8 headers, msd ignition , pullies, and shortly a 150 hit of the sauce.

The car will have 3.73 gears, and be swapped to a t-5 soon.

The car is a 90 lx 4cyl hb. fully gutted interior. ill throw up a pic of how its sittin now waiting for more parts and always need mo $

what cam will work well with my mods ? preferably without notching the pistons.

This is a street/drag car, not DD by any means but will prob not be spinning it higher 6500-6800

Portmaster

Well it's like this. Drag car it may be but it won't be very quick. First dump the 1 inch carb spacer between a weiand stealth and a Holley 600 cfm carb. It's going to kill part of your low end and with stock heads your giving away your best bit of power. PTV clearance always needs to be checked. Because it's a flat tappet hyd cam and you will be using it as a drag car in this application I would go with a Comp XE268H. It will give you the most low end to top end power with the bad heads and should peak out around 5500 so shifting at 5800 will drop you back into the first meaty part of the torque curve. In a light car with some skilled driving it will make a decent bracket car without the need for a cage. If you plan on smacking it with a 150 shot you may want to upgrade those sorry pistons that came in the 83's

wowvfast

that is a very mild street set-up......auto or 5 speed?...what gears...need to know all the facts before cam recommendation...

that spacer isn't hurting anything really, it only moves the rpm up maybe 100-200 rpm...and helps keep the heat off the carb...

PDXStang503

it has a 4 speed manual in it now but will be swapped to either t5 or c4 in the next few months.

has the stock 7.5 now, again working on a 8.8 as soon as i find a decent deal, ill be using 3.73's I think.

Portmaster

Don't need to know much on this one if you know how the heads flow. The heads a re the limiting factor and that engine will fall off past 5800 rpm no matter what cam is in it therefore it's best to optimize the engines true power range and thats from around 2000-5500 rpm. The 600 cfm carb is about right but the spacer only reduces the signal to the carb at low rpm and trying to get 100-200 more rpm out of an engine that will be falling off before the intake raches it maimum flow will hurt bottom end, mid range and top end from poor signal. The best thing he could do is select a cam according to the heads and then gear his drag car to the engine. You build that engine for max torque with the widest power curve possible. Sometimes you have to work around what you have and not what you want. If he didn't alrealy have the stealth intake I would have told him to get a Performer intake. Sure it's mild but you can build a wild engine around a **** poor set of heads. Putting a huge cam in it won't do anything but make a bad situation worse.

wowvfast

the signal won't really change with the spacer on this engine unless it's not making good vacuum......making way to much of this one....it very mild engine. if it were my build I wouldn't touch the cam til I got some head work done....what would help is a small cam with daul pattern on a tighter (110) C/L with not alot of overlap...springs in his heads aren't going to like 6k rpm's anywayz


dude you need to get your rear and trans straight first. so you can get your rpm range within what you want from the car...

Portmaster

A big open spacer ruins the entire concept of a what the intake is all about. The iintake is good for 6500 rpm as is. It's already too much intake for the engine but will still do OK. I've only seen a few occasions where a carb spacer really helped and engine and those were on really hot engines with single plane intakes. You may find a few more hp right at the top of the rpm range on other applications but a good running engine isnt about the peak hp numbers it's about how wide you can make that engine build torque and at what rpm you want it. Sometimes a spacer may give you 5 peak hp but cost you 20lbs ft of torque all the way to 5000 rpm. The trade off isnt worth it on a low power engine that is already in trouble.

The cam I picked is a dual patten cam and here are the basic spec's

Lift 493/500
Duration @.050 218/224
110 LSA
Basic RPM range 1300-5600

Considering a E7 heads reach max flow +-.0470 lift this cam takes the lift just past that. It will make excellant low end torque and take it to the limits of the heads. If you can't maketop end HP you make it on the bottom and gear around it. Put this engine (Less the power robbing carb spacer) and throw it into a stripped fox body with a total weight of 2500 lbs and some 3:73 gears with 8 inch wide slicks and you could narrow down a field of street cars in a hurry. Despite the fact that it's way less than optimal in a bracket race it would be tough to beat. The really great thing about it is you could get in it and make 50 passes a day in it and not hurt it. If the car is light enough it may even run some high 12's. Sometimes a low buck, low hp, high torque drag car that doesn't break stuff can earn a few bucks on race day. Not only that but it's the best car to learn how to drive in. If you can hit the strip and make 20 passes (slow day) pretty soon you start learning how to launch the car and cut some good lights and learn how to get your burnouts right. My wife got her first dragstrip experiance behind the wheel of a New 95 Ranger Pickup with a 4.0 Auto and a set of Drag Slicks. She's been hooked ever since. It's rare she ever cut anything worse than a 025 light. When she goes to the strip she runs consistant 13.20s and has a blast in her Mustang. She wins a lot more rounds than she looses.
His car may not be your cup of tea but it's a good learning tool with stress free fun. Thats what it's all about anyway.

PDXStang503

Ill be installing gt40p's as soon as I find a decent set around. I missed some in the junkyard last week this is a ongoing project, just getting it running decent while I take my time building the suspension and rearend. Thanks for all the responses

PDXStang503

btw I drive a 03 ranger edge with the sohc v6 thats loads of fun to drive, great power in that truck for a DD.

Joel5.0

Jesus!......

I was going to stay out of this one, but I can't.

Small block engine, drag car setup, and torque down low should be considered?
Is the launch RPM's limited to 3500?.... is the shift point limited to 5300? .... is the shifting RPM's drop expected to exceed 1900 RPM's. BTW... this is not as simple as a camshaft recommendation based on a RPM's operating range that may not be applicable to this setup.... or does installing a 2500-5500 RPM's cam mean it will work in that range, regardless what's installed in terms of the other components?.... answer....NO!

You can make an advertised RPM's camshaft, or intake, or cylinder heads, work effectively outside its advertised range...... if you set the WHOLE COMBO correctly..... OR is a 90mm TB too big for a DD 306 setup?.... or a 220/220 camshaft too small for a 6850 RPM's setup?

However...... torque down low in a SBF drag car setup........................... is such an obvious contradiction.