Full Cam

Messenjah26 · March 3, 2004

Does anyone have a full cam in their 5.7 350? Do you have a decent power and noise increase, I love the sound of a cam, and extra power cant hurt either!

1BADHD · March 3, 2004

What do you mean by a full cam?

Messenjah26 · March 3, 2004

as big as I can possibly put in, I'm not sure about the specs yet because I'm not real sure whether to get a truck specific cam, or to just go for one for my 350. Anyone have a truck specific cam? I've seen them in Jegs and I don't know what the difference would be between that and just a regular 350 cam.

GM GIMP · March 3, 2004

Too much cam will kill your power and may cause piston to

valve clearance problems. Best thing is to call tech Dept.

at Comp., Lunati or any other reputable cam co.

juiced01s10 · March 3, 2004

this would be a good cam 12-239-3, give you some good low end tq and upper end power plus a noticeable idle. also looks very streetable

http://www.compcams.com/Technical/Catalogs...TML/128-169.asp

Cool Zr2 · March 3, 2004

Isn't a vortec 350 have a roller cam?

MCourson · March 3, 2004

I would stick with a cam for your specific application. Get the most effiecient power in the most effiecient RPM range. Im sure you could put as big a cam as you want in there but with stock valvetrain and pretty much everything else it wouldnt work to good.

superbee · March 3, 2004

Cam selection is very complex. You must take into account: intake, exhaust, compression ratio, final drive ratio, stall speed (if auto trans), as well as fuel delivery capacity, and lower end toughness (don't cam a stock engine to make max power at 9500 rpm, BOOM!). Anyone who is going to help you select the proper cam for your truck had better be asking questions about all of those things and more. Otherwise, keep looking. The best place to start would be with an outfit that sells or manufactures cams. Lunati and Comp have already been mentioned and I agree, also Isky(Iskenderian, I think), Crane, and Edelbrock are all very good. Summit Racing and Jegs are also good sources. Don't just ask them what cam to use though, learn as much as you can from all of these sources. It's pretty cool to be the guy that everybody comes to with cam questions. Also I had the 268H from Comp in a 351W, 80 Bronco. Great cam, just not for my gears, I had 3.50 diffs. I went to 4.11s and was thrilled. Great setup.

Superbee

MCourson · March 3, 2004

Yes all the variables come into play. When we did the motor in the 57 we designed it and built it to run a Comp (dont remember grind number off hand) .501 lift/ .292 duration cam. In the end, kinda ran out of money and had to run the carb off the old motor (327 with a Holley 600 cfm). It finally woke up when I stuck a Holley 750 on it.

Messenjah26 · March 3, 2004

Thanks guys, I know a guy that builds racing engines and I'll probably give him a call too to see what he thinks. All the top cars at our local dirt track run his motors so I guess he's good LOL.

superbee · March 4, 2004

Just don't be surprised if you can't do too much with your computer attached. I just built the engine in my '88 k2500 and was very disappointed by my limited selection. I was only able to run a very mild RV/Towing grind. YAWWN!

bigdogs · March 4, 2004

I'm guessing they are calling it "full cam" from back when it was cool to have a "3/4 race cam". Don't forget bigger cam you go, less vaccum you have for things like brakes, etc....

And like someone said, you stick too big of a cam w/o doing other work, like notching the pistons, you can grenade your motor (saw this happen once and not pretty).

Lastly if you have to smog test your vehicle and it comes in loping, you may have a "bit" of trouble.

Messenjah26 · March 4, 2004

I've talked to some local people at the speed shop, off road shop, and a guy I know at GM. They said that I would need the computer reprogramed for a bigger cam, and that I would probably need to get a truck specific one because a racing cam wouldn't be right for what i want. One of the guys at the of road shop had I think it was an edlebrock truck cam and it had the right sound and he said it gave him around 40 or 50 more horses, so I'll probably look into that .

AZ1500 · March 18, 2004

Just go with 1.85 ratio rocker arms. Good for about 25hp and streetable. Check out

99Silver6.0 · March 18, 2004

Comp 54-412-11 212/218 .522/.529 114LSA seems to be a good choice for the truck. You dont need a tune with a mild cam, but to maximize the gains a good tune is essential.

-EDIT, sorry. I didnt read the first post very well.. Cam is for a TBI350.