IgorT.455/406

Hey guys.

Real mild combo here. 355" motor with ARP main studs and head bolts, Mahle 2 valve relif pistons and scat 4340 5.7" rods with 7/16s cap screws. M6 car with 4.10 gears and all other support mods (LTs, OFY, CB, Electric WP, tune, free mods, ram air hood with its CAI, MSD opti and digital 6). Block will be decked, will see if i can get it close to zero deck and still be square deck. Will run a McLeod street twin with a steel fly.

Basically car with stock longblock ran awesome but got a rod knock. Just trying to rebuild it simple and on the budget.

Planing on maybe running stock rebuild heads with valvesprings and a cam. I figured a raise in compression and a bigger cam/valvetrain upgrade should net me a few more horsepower w/o having to change the whole car and spend a pile of money.

I am thinking of going with a 503 cam. BUT, what about one of these new XFI cams?? Maybe the 467?? What do you guys think???

http://www.compcams.com/technical/Ca...07/168-169.pdf

Want a mild daily driver with a little more power then stock. Car has a 75-175 nitrous kit so keep that in mind. Don't plan to spray more then 125, but, you know how it goes. The car has 4.10 gears and not planing on going any taller or shorter.

Either I go with a cam/stock rebuilt heads, or, LE1 setup. But shipping to/from the US for my cores/new heads, and duty to canada, really gets the price up. Plus the wait time, my short block is almost done.

Any advice would be good.

Thanks,

Igor.

RUDEDOG

I had a setup similar to yours and I my went with 221\227 dur and .540ish lift with 1.6 roller rockers. LSA was 112. I was pleased with this cam. Made good power low, mid, high. Set my limiter at 5900. Make sure you get good springs.

HardcoreRM125

I'd go bigger. You have the gears that will help eat up a bigger cam. Id look at a custom grind like the LE1 High Lift, or something along those lines. Think something around 224/230ish with higher lift profiles. Talk to LE and see what he could do you up with.

As for the heads, its been debated numerous times. Some say LE's stuff comes out rough and that he had QC issues. Others swear by his stuff. For a budget build I'd be looking at LE's stuff. Theres a good chance I will get Lloydd to do my Trickflows when I get them ...

For an off-the-shelfer, A CC503 is pretty much the next step down from a CC306/GM847 (which are NOT mild). However, with a good tune, and those gears, you could get CC306/GM847's to drive very well. Minimal surge, etc. Worth considering, if your willing to rev up to 6600-6800ish RPM's. If not, I say CC503. Dont hear enough about the new XFI's yet ... Which is unfortunate as they look promising on paper. Wish I could find some midlift duration values on them ...

Put it this way, my cam is a REALLY high lift 224/230 on a significantly tighter LSA than any of the above cams, so it has a good bit more valve overlap than the CC503 does. Mine surges at less than 5% throttle, in first gear. So coming through parking lots slowly, it kinda blows, other than that, I love it. I wish I would have went slightly bigger, but at the same time I am kinda glad I didnt cause I dont think it would hold spinning much higher than that with my N20 kit on there too hahah...

speed_demon24

Here's what my 224/230 HL BRE cam did to my lifters.


That was only after 3-4k miles of mostly easy driving. If I didn't catch that in time the lifter would have ground down the lobe on the cam putting metal through my motor. Not to mention the springs lost ALOT of spring pressure over a relativly short period of time so they were most likley about to break.

IgorT.455/406

I think I should have mentioned this in my post.

This car IS to be daily driven. I DO deal with a lot of stop/go rush hour traffic every day. I do not like cam surge. My buddy has a 302 mustang with a big cam, tall gears and his cam surge is horrible at low speed. I want to avoid this. I also do not want to have a lot of clutch chatter, as I have had this in the past on my manual trans F bodies and I hated it. In all my research about clutches and stuff, the conclusion I got is that the McLeod Street Twin w/steel fly would be the best compromise for me in terms of street-ability vs. holding power.

Due to lots of street driving and stuff, I need reliability. I do not want to change springs/lifters and have issues at 3k miles, otherwise i'd go solid roller if i wanted so much maintenance. What I want is something that will go 50,000 miles w/o a rebuild. I am willing to spend the $$$ for a good valvetrain, but by keeping the cam on the mild side I am hoping to get reliability.

Having said that I obviously want more power. I figure with 1 point higher compression AND a bit more cam, this combo should net me honest 320rwhp, and with a 125 shot that is up to 450 or so and pushing limits of my stock 2 bolt block, t56 and all other parts. I am hoping the clutch will handle the occasional shot, and, i have spare 10 bolts but am willing to buy a real diff.

So in conclusion I think a reliable combo is more what i want vs. 20hp more. I would like to have a big enough idle that i can hear it, and a bit more upper rpm power then stock.

Keep in mind the possible nitrous, so, not sure if a tight LSA cam is for me. This is why those new XFI cams look appealing as they have 113lsa.

I am willing to try one of them new XFIs if you guys think they will work with my requirements AND occasional nitrous.

Best manual trans 350 combo I had in the past was a 358" sbc with eddy rpm heads, comp xe268 hydro flat tappet cam and T5 with 3.43 gears. It worked well all around, good on highway, good in traffic, was RPM intake and 750 carb. I drove it year round and its street manners were not too bad.

dangalla

here we go again

joeSS97

I recommend going with the 503.You should be happy with it. JMHO

89385formula

Here we go again with the finger pointing! Valve float messes things up, Including lifters. It can be caused by springs that are installed at improper height. Its been documented here that when you installed your 918's they were at improper height and that was you valve float issue at high RPM. Valve Float also kills springs, surprise surprise your springs lost pressure. Well no duh! If I remember correctly even after the spring height issue was resolved by shimming, you still reused those springs. Now I realize pointing this out might hurt your ego, or perhaps your agenda for bashing LE/BRE for your own mistakes. I get your sour that you had bad luck(which seems apparent that you made mistakes) but just let it go.
Since you and your newfound brotherhood don't mind cluttering up threads i'll add this; Heres a good read https://www.camaroz28.com/forums/sho...96#post5067896

post #14 may be of interest to anyone wondering about the blame game you have been playing.

Thread HighJack/OFF

HardcoreRM125

Yea, not to point fingers, or put you down, but seriously, the people that have been bashing BRE / LE for putting out sub-par performance/unreliable combos have pretty much done it to theirselves ...

Not putting Bret/LE down either, but its not like their coming up with some revolutionary lobe designs ... Thats what Comp Cams does. Comp designs the lobes. Bret specs out the durations, LSA, Which COMP CAMS LOBE PROFILES to use ... etc. So dont act like it happened cause Bret gave you a cam that ramps up too hard.

I guess its Comp Cams fault huh?

speed_demon24

You might want to get your facts straight before you start nutswinging again. The engine was taken up to 6500 twice on the dyno before I shimmed them down. I didn't go WOT before the dyno incase the tune was off, and since there was a problem above 5800 I didn't take it into the high RPM's after. And your boy didn't mention anything about shimming the springs when I bought the cam from him, he just said use these components. And you would think Lloyd would have said something if the springs were bad when he put them back on my heads after porting them since I'm sure he checked the pressures even though they only had 1000 miles on them. And I was running the guideplates Lloyd reccomended and pushrods that he reccomended so nice try again. Since you brought this up I'll list everything that was wrong with the heads.


And there is no way to compare the pushrod length with LE heads and AI heads since they are milled differently, they have a different length valves, different valve job, ect. Do you want me to dig up the link where Bret was repeadidly asked to post his credentials but he kept avoiding the question? I find it funny that he went from porting LS1 throttle bodies to a valve train "expert" over night.

89385formula

You had valvefloat DID YOU NOT? That hurts springs, that hurts lifters. So my facts are straight. Maybe he didn't tell you to shim them specifically, but I'm sure he mentioned an installed height. Also did you specifically ask Lloyd to check the springs you supplied or are you just assuming(again) that he checked them? Everyone sees your agenda here and your mad because I call you out on your nonsense.

Javier97Z28

Get this thread back on track please...

89385formula

Dig up all you want pal, I don't care. I'm calling YOU out on your BS stories. They never match 100% and you installed springs wrong. You were happy with the cam until YOU messed up. Your grasping here, and trying to discredit anyone that doesn't agree with you. The point being made there wasn't to compare the heads but more directly at you for not making sure pushrod length/geometry was correct.

89385formula

Your right Javier, sorry for helping the highjack here.

speed_demon24

Dig all I want? You're the one going into past threads. And the springs were off the heads, then re-installed by Lloyd. If the spring pressures were off he would have said something.

It's always the same with you guys, always ignoring the facts and nit-picking what you want. And if the geometry was off the guides would have worn out, they wouldn't have CRACKED.
And yes I was happy with the cam before I found out it had the most agressive lobes comp makes for h/r cams that eat up valve springs every couple thousand miles.

And if it was having problems with lighter LT1 valves with the springs installed at 1.78" don't you think it would have alot more valve float issues with 918's installed at 1.80-1.75"? (checked the height on my LE2's when I took off the springs and they varied from 1.75" to 1.80")