Thread: What Should l I expect

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Ok,

i came across two deals so sweet it doesn't even make since, I got a FREE 85 chevy 4 bolt main block.. There is a guy who works at a shop owes me a engine build..so im getting it built for free.. Im gonna keep the dome pistions in the motor.. the heads have already been gone through (stock).. the crank is getting turned as we speak.. yada yada

Then i found a guy who seems to change cams ever damn week when he goes the the track.. hes into roller cams now.. but he had a hyd .525 lift cam.. either crane or comp.. (streetable duration) one of the two.. well he's selling the..springs valves liftes etc.. with the cam for $150 bucks mostly,because we belong to the same malibu car club

So if i take this 350 block put that cam in it with the stock heads.. my eldbrk performer rpm intake.. 650 holley carb.. and headers on it.. what hp should i be looking for right as this point..

i plan on looking for some heads soon....

as you may have read before i have a 355 i pulled out, and i was gonna go 383 or rebuild till i came across this.. .

Sounds like a sweet deal, good luck....just be really careful on the cam, I have never-----never-----had any luck with a used cam. Make sure the lifters that went with it are put back exactly where they came from. If that cant happen, dont do it...and I have heard people say you can use a used cam with new lifters. Again, no luck here....my machinist says the same thing. And remember, if the cam goes away, so do your new bearings and the rest of your new rebuild. Be careful!! But have fun, and good luck. John

Originally posted by 1JohnnyO
Sounds like a sweet deal, good luck....just be really careful on the cam, I have never-----never-----had any luck with a used cam. Make sure the lifters that went with it are put back exactly where they came from. If that cant happen, dont do it...and I have heard people say you can use a used cam with new lifters. Again, no luck here....my machinist says the same thing. And remember, if the cam goes away, so do your new bearings and the rest of your new rebuild. Be careful!! But have fun, and good luck. John

im not to worried about the cam, has about 10 miles on it...

Doesnt matter, if it was in an engine and run at all, even for a few minutes, and you take it out and put the cam and lifters in another engine, it wont wear the same, and that's the problem. I personally wouldnt do it, but go for it if you feel confident. I would just hate to see you trash a new engine trying to save a few bucks. The lifters and cam lobes wear together during break-in, it only takes a few minutes. So the short run time on the cam wont guarantee you anything. Im sure you dont want to offend your friend, but make a call to a couple other shops and ask their opinion. Just a thought.

I'd get a new cam, Summit has there house brand w/ hydraulic lifters for like 79.95, it's cheaper and that's how much all of there SBC cams are, there is a wide variaty of dururations and lifts for cams. It's hard to tell the HP on your '85 350, your saying mostly stock, well, they had about 170-180 stock in that year so, with any aftermarket cam, you should also put a performance intake manifold and headders are optional but recomended, you'll probably be someware around 220 maby.

Use the cam he has, but replace the lifters. Each lifter bore in each engine is bored at slightly differant angles. In a perfect world lifters would piont at the cams center-line, in other words the lifter bores would be registered off of the cam CL. In the real world and in mass production things flex and wear. Pulling a set of lifters out of one block and trying it in a second block is russian rulet. It dont matter if 10 miles or 10,000....the wear pattern is in the lifters and the cam lobes, now your goin g to try to teach an old dog some new tricks. Does this make sense yet? Throw his used lifters away, buy cheap hyd lifters and use his cam if you want, under no circumstances would I trash $1000 in parts by pumping a wiped out cam and lifters thru my engine.

Well, I can understand what the deal is, it basically a toss up weither it'll work or not..with new lifters..the theory behing it is solid, but if people haven't had good luck, i might as well just chang emy plan a lil.... well aight if i dont buy the cam and lifters from him.. and i do buy one for summit...... now i need you to help me pick out a new cam..

Rememebr i have Domed Pistions... I want the highest lift with a duration that will let me get off extremly fast on the street.. and i kinda want a lil loopy idle.. so if anybody has a suggestion it would be helpful..

Originally posted by YoungMalibu
Well, I can understand what the deal is, it basically a toss up weither it'll work or not..with new lifters..the theory behing it is solid, but if people haven't had good luck, i might as well just chang emy plan a lil.... well aight if i dont buy the cam and lifters from him.. and i do buy one for summit...... now i need you to help me pick out a new cam..

Rememebr i have Domed Pistions... I want the highest lift with a duration that will let me get off extremly fast on the street.. and i kinda want a lil loopy idle.. so if anybody has a suggestion it would be helpful..

The lopey idle, the sound of inefficency. Look at cams, youl notice that they all have RPM ranges like 1500-4000 or such. Your car will be street driven right, well, that means that the first 3 cams on the list are deffinetly streetable, with the 3rd 1 having a powerband of 1500-4000 RPM now, depending on your gears, 1500-2000 RPM is probably crusing speed RPM's. The 4th on the list goes from 2000-4500, it's for the most part streetable but, in certine situations when below 2000 rpm, you will notice a diffrence. Now, if you wanted like a real lopey idle, you'd have a powerband of 4000-7200 RPM, not streetable and, that has a .555"max lift. There are other ways to make the car shake and stuff, 1 way is to play with the timing, another way ( expensive ) is to mount a huffer on it, they seem to do wonders for idles.

A camshaft is chosen after all the details are in place. The cam is the center of your engines universe, and if you have any of the supporting items out of whack the cam will be absolutely terrible. Its very common for folks to overcam an otherwise good engine because they want the "sound of a loopy idle". That idle means that you have alot of valve overlap, this means you have a terrible amount of low RPM cylinder bleed and low dynamic cylinder pressure at low RPM's. This all spells P..I..G.. in street trim.

Imagine taking an NHRA Pro-Stock engine out and bolting it to your turbo 350 tranny and 3.08:1 10 bolt rear end....this thing is gonna suck wind from a Honda Civic! Replace that tranny with a Powerglide with a dearborn air shifter and a 5000 RPM convertor with a transbrake, and change that rear end to a Ford 9" with a detroit or a spool and swap the gears for a set of 5.88:1 in there and now your gonna get something done! Why? Because your starting to work the system.

OK, Im over with the abstract rant, sorry.

When your trying to make street power, you need to be realistic with yourself. Your power range needs to be about 1500/2000 to about 5000 or 6000. Depends on your entire setup. If your all stock, rear end, tranny, heads/porting, fuel delivery...etc...etc...you should be staying with a cam that has a good wide lobe seperation like a 110 to 114 degree lobe sep, I prefere 114. The wider lobe sep lets you run more duration with less cylinder pressure bleed off. Keep your duration @ 0.050" at less than 235 for stock car engines assuming its a lighter car. If its a land barge that your working on keep it at 225 max. If you want to tighten the lobe seperation angle you better drop a few degrees off that duration or you loose cylinder pressure.

If your going to gear it up, add stall, and get the heads to really flow and deliver fuel in a big way....than your wallets the limit. Go with a .920" lift cam thats a 110 lobe sep and 320/330 duration at .050"....this is now in NHRA Pro-Stock territory. But you need to build the entire system for whatever your doing. Always think about the big picture, and remember your cam can make your engine into a fun toy, or a sorry hunk of trash. Its all up to you.

Well alright, i looked at the cams on there, and i seen the one from the 2,000-4,500 and this is my new question.. im seeing when i add my rear end and all that imma need to change the cam again... but for now imma keep my stock rear.. but i do wannt know..

if i have a stall that is 2,000 does that mean that i will still have a problem with power under 2,000 rpms?

and what rpm does a normaly 350 turbo with a street/strip kit and a stock rear shift at.. cause whats the point of having a cam making power in rpms i don't use it in