Thread: cam selection

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well while i have the 406 on the stand i figured i would tell you guys what kind of parts it has and see what you think. i pretty new at building motors and picking out performance parts so i wanted to get some other opinions. i have heard people tell me that this motor could use a cam change but like i said i have no idea when i drove it in the fairlane it was in the thing was a monster anyway on to the motor
bored .60 over and i has a 428 crank bringing it to 440ci
a Holman-Moody HA-B cam .526 lift and .290 dur. (i cant figure out what it is @ .50 bc their cam sheet is hand written and looks like nothing i have ever seen ill try to get a pic of it)
solid lifters
10.7:1 compression
tri-power setup form HP Trends
the thing made some weird numbers on the dyno
it made 326hp and 500ftlbs of torque at the wheels
to me this sounds pretty weird why would the hp be so low and the torque so high we did 5 pulls and kept getting 500 ftlbs and around 326-335hp the dyno was at a well know shop so im pretty sure there was nothing wrong with it
people have told me that the reason for the difference in numbers is because of how many cubic inches there are and the compression but that just doesnt make since to me.
any ideas on anything i could change to get some more power, maybe the cam?

If you're creating 500 ft lbs of torque, who cares at what HP its happening?
Torque is what creates acceleration not HP!

What is your torque and HP at 5252 RPMs, assuming you reved it that high.

HP and torque should be equal at that point.
If not - the graph is probably incorrect.

i dont have the graph in front of me but it made peak torque @5000rpm and the peak hp was at 3500rpm ill have to see if i can find it

That's fairly normal numbers for an FE... They produce tons of torque with the right parts. Looks like you're putting out some good power, enjoy it!!!!

Now that's a flat torque curve!

Here's the spec sheet -
http://www.kendrick-auto.com/385-486.html

jeeze that is flat in one of my earlier posts in this thread i said that it made peak torque at 5000rpm and peak hp at 3500rpm i just realized i got that backwards while reading over my posts so is a flat torgue curve ideal for a motor?

i looked at the link i think the motor they are describing as a 406 is a chevy

My bad - I searched all over for Ford 406 dyno charts but that's all I could find!

Here's a decent basic discussion of Torque and HP.
I'm still trying to get it all straight in my head.

http://vettenet.org/torquehp.html

thanks for all the helpful info

i have had alot if people tell me this motor could make more power with a cam change i stated above what the specs on the cam are but here it is again
Holman-Moody HA-B .526 lift .290 duration. its a solid lifter cam also
what do you guys think?

Why change it? The durations qbout right for the RPM,s with the 428 crank.
You don,t run the 428 crank more that 6000 (IMO) maybe less if you want
to keep it. It's a torque mtr man that is unless you have big bucks in the
lower end. In the ol days redline 7000 was for 427's, not 428's.
Good luck, Ron

Just remember if and when you change the cam...that block is a solid lifter block from the factory. I'd see how it runs and then decide. I have a new Crower solid cam and new solid lifters on ebay that was leftover from my old 406 builds. 549 int/561 ex. If it does not sell it'll be up for grabs.