Just as I pulled into my driveway this evening I heard the "death rattle" of a spun rod bearing. The rebuild that I was going to do next winter will come early, hopefully before the good weather gets here. I am planning on using vortec heads, Performer manifold, flat top hyperutectic pistons (9.3:1?), 3.08 gears, daily driver, automatic trans, q-jet. I'm going to put in headers and an OD tranny, too, sometime in the future.
These are the cams I am thinking about, and the manufacturer's web page info:
Crane PowerMax H-266-2 Good idle, daily usage, off road, towing, economy, good low and mid range torque and HP, 2400-2800 cruise RPM, 8.5 to 10.0 compression ratio advised. Basic RPM 2000-5000; 210/216@.050; .440/.454 lift; 114*lobe sep.
Crane PowerMax H-272-2Good idle, daily usage and off road, towing, performance and fuel efficiency, 2600-3000 cruise RPM, 8.75 to 10.75 compression ratio advised. Basic RPM 2000-5000 216/228@.050; .454/.480 lift; 112*lobe sep.
Comp Cams XE262 Xtreme Energy has excellent response, good mid range with a noticeable idle. 1300-5600RPM; 218/224@.050; .462/.469 lift; 110* lobe sep. 415 ft-lbs @ 3700 RPM, 348 HP @ 5300 RPM
GMPP 350HO with Vortec heads: 212/222@.050; .435/.460 lift; 112* lobe sep. 9.1:1 compression, 330HP 380TQ

Any advice or experience? I like the XE262, but not the narrow lobe sep, as I don't want a lopey idle. The Crane cams seem to stradle the XE in numbers; is the 266 too mild? 272 too much? GM put a lot of thought into their cam, but it will be more expensive, I'm sure.

What do you think? Joe

You don't say if you already have any of these parts or not. If you do not have any of them, maybe you should call Comp, Crane and Edelbrock. Tell them exactly what your requirements are and let them suggest one of their complete packages which should include the heads, lifters, manifold, carb and cam. Benefit from their experiance. Too many people start to mix and match and end up close to what they want but in most cases it is just never quite right, sometimes it does not work at all. All I'm saying is, it does not hurt to call the guys who are paid to eliminate the guesswork for you.
Good luck with your project.

I designed the 350 mods in my 75 with Edelbrock Tech Support, and I got exactly the driver performance I was looking for. They included specific recommendations for other vendors' products (e.g. Comp roller rockers, Hedman Hedders, MSD ignition, etc.) that they knew would be compatible. I'm sure the same would be true if I worked with Holley/Lunati.

Conventional Wisdom: Cam, induction, heads and exhaust MUST work together by design, or they will likely not work together at all.

I am very happy with the Crane H-266 cam. Good low end torque. Check out my home page to see the DD curves. Higher lift of the H-272 would be my second choice. Corvette Fever did an article back in 96 using the H-272 and got 320HP with stock exhaust.

|UPDATED|5/15/2003 3:48:59 PM|/UPDATED|

I'm using the comp cams xe262 with stock heads(3-angle valve job), edelbrock perf. and 600 edel. carb. and headers. I did change valve springs. Everything else is stock. Trans. is a t400. It idles at 650 with no lope, and good vac. for the brakes. Good street set up. Tom

i tend to go on the conservative side when it going to be a daily driver. with the 308 gears i would look for something that works well at lower RPM and with the idea of putting a OD trans in later it would also warrent it.
higher lift cams and larger overlap will move the usable RPM range up higher. most street cars never get wound up high enough to get into the higher range often enough to benefit this. thats why a gear change is often the next step in improving performnce. you have to decide what the car is being used for. you say a daily driver then i think driveability and fuel mileage would be a concern. my advice would be use the Crane PowerMax H-266-2 smooth idle and good driveability. this cam will pull good vacuum which will keep it responsive

Well, after 3 1/2 weeks, the car is back together. I must be the only person in the Northeast that doesn't mind that the sun hasn't shone in 3 1/2 weeks, either.

I had a spare 350 at my parents house that I put in for now. It came out of a 72 Impala, so it is good and torquey. I'll see how I like it before I decide on a cam for the original motor. Anyone know the cam specs for a 72 Impala?

Thanks for all the advice. I'll be doing more research and buy the parts this fall, for a winter rebuild. One thing I did accomplish is polish the L82 valve covers, and paint the motor orange. So it looks a lot better than it did before.

Now the sun can come out!
Joe

Engine builds and choosing the right parts can be hard. I always look at where I want to be with the entire project before I decide and then map out all the parts before I build anything, just a suggestion. On another note I can tell you about an engine combination that we put together here at Holley. The upside is it was done on a budget and it made kickin power. The only downside was I forgot to take an engine Vacuum reading at idle before taking it off the dyno. I can tell you it idled very well (around 850 rpms) with the Lunati cam that was in it. I can tell you if your concerned about the cam you can take the HP and torque numbers from this engine and just subtract from it. Here are the part numbers and info on this engine.

P/N's Desc Price
JRM-C355-F4 Classic Short Block - Includes Lunati 30142 Cam & Lifters $1,299.95
Includes timings set, full balance, Align Hone, Clevite Bearings, Moly Rings, Hypereutectic Pistons, Race prep rods with, ARP bolts. Square decked
300-552 Holley SBC 20 Deg Aluminum Cylinder Heads 1,199.95
300-36 Holley Street Dominator Dual Plane Intake $119.95
0-80670 670 CFM Street Avenger Carb $359.95
84146 1.5 Aluminum Roller Rocker Arms $220.90
84380 Rocker Arm Lock Nuts $21.06
301-37 Pushrods $31.81
890-200 Holley Billet Distributor, Mech. Adv. $277.07
800-50 Holley Analog Ignition Box $178.00
820-100 Holley CD Coil $70.85
50-9869 Holley Lasershot 50 Wire Set $75.16
8220 Weiand Team G Corvette Style Water pump $159.95
12-327-11 Mechanical 110 GPH Fuel Pump $69.95
241-80 Holley Valve Covers $40.00
241-209 (2 Required) Holley Valve cover Breathers $12.88
120-146 Holley Air Cleaner With Power Shot Filter $61.06
JRM WYS WA4957 Chome Dipstick $5.95
JRM WYS WA9005RAW Stock Pan, 5 QT $29.95
JRM DYN DM55 Dyna Gear Oil Pump Standard Volume $13.95
JRM DYN D55S1 Stock Style Oil Pickup $6.95
JRM WYS WA4934 Timing Cover $8.95
JRM PRC HB350 6-3/4" Balancer Stock Replacement $44.95
JRM MOR 26200 Moroso Dist Hold down $7.89
JRM GM 10108470 Thermostat Housing $5.95
JRM ARP 134-3601 ARP Head Bolts $49.99
JRM ARP 134-2101 ARP Intake Bolts $12.99
JRM ARP 234-1802 ARP Oil Pan Bolts $13.99
JRM ARP 200-1502 ARP Timing Cover Bolts $9.99
JRM ARP 200-7601 ARP Stamped Steel Valve cover Bolts $14.99
JRM ARP 200-2401 ARP Carb Studs $8.99
JRM FM 260-1000 Fed Mogul Gasket Kit $33.95
2456-1HKR Hooker 1-5/8" Ceramic Coated Headers 68-82 Corvette $407.84
TOTAL $4,875.76

JRM numbers mean the parts cam from JR motorsports catalog. This is a Hyperutetic engine short block from them. I included pricing on everything from the ground up as if the customer had nothing to work with and I believe I covered all the parts and accessories that would be needed to duplicate the engine. Of course the price will go down if the customer has pieces they will be reusing like valve covers, balancer, timing covers, etc. Also in the pricing is a set of Ceramic Coated Hooker Headers for a Corvette. Its really not that bad when you divide the total by the HP the engine made. Price per HP comes in around 12.40-12.70 per I'm sure if you took some time to shop around you can get the price for some of these parts even cheaper. To date I can tell you that we have probably well over 100 Pulls on this engine and it can take a beating. Oh, what did the engine make: 410HP, 390 ft lbs. It was making 300 ft lbs. at 2200 rpms, and made 390 by 3000 rpms. Peak HP was at 5500 RPMS and torque was still at 340 ft lbs. This was a really nice motor for the money. I don't know to many places were you can get an engine with aluminum heads making this type of power for under 5K. I'm going to build basically the same engine, but will be using the 06109 Cam and figure it should make somewhere in the the 350 to 375 Horses with around 350 Ft lbs of torque. But I plan to throw a 150 shot of Nitrous on top of it so I can have 500 HP at will, just in case.

Good luck with your engine.

Thanks for the advice, After Shark, but it's a little too much for me - with the auto I want to idle about 700-750 in park, 600 in drive. The Impala motor I put in now idles at 500 in drive!

I did find some information that I wanted to share. It comes from Harold at Ultradyne Cams, and concerns the use of single vs. dual pattern cams:

Joe

There are two different items at work here.
1.---On most cylinder heads, whenever I have around a 75% exhaust-to-intake ratio, I use an 8 degree bigger exhaust cam. If the ratio is under 70%, I use 12 degrees, and around 80%, only 4. Whenver the ratio gets around 85%, single pattern cams seem to work as good as anything. Rarely do reverse-pattern(intake bigger than exhaust) cams work.
The two times they do, blown alcohol and turbo-charged, are both for putting heat into the engine or the exhaust.
2.---At the same time, it depends upon what you want the engine to do. Single pattern cams have better bottom-end, dual pattern cams have better top-end. At low RPM, the longer power stroke of a single pattern cam puts more torque into the crank. At high RPM, the most important thing is getting exhaust gas out of the engine. You can't get more charge in if old exhaust gas is still in the chamber. This is why the torque curve makes a sudden down-turn at peak horsepower. The exhaust cam has suddenly become inefficient about getting the old exhaust out, and some gas is retained and trapped, and the intake cannot fill completely because of this extra exhaust gas hanging around.
So, for the best overall power curve, on the average you want a dual-pattern cam, and around 8 to 10 degrees more exhaust. However, if a lot of bottom-end is your goal, or you have heads with a high exhaust/intake ratio, a single-pattern cam will work better.
Was this confusing enough? This is based on 30 years(1972-2002) of cam design and application...
Let me know if you have further questions...

UDHarold

Ok,,, question,
I have a GM crate motor w/ an Edelbrock 750 double pumper & Performer manifold from the previous owner. (Actually, that was a statement,, now for the question.) A guy that used to work for me (in auto repair) is recommending to go w/ a 292 cam (I know, radical). I don't mind making a milkshake at every light but what would be some other alternatives? I want roller lifters (1.5 or 1.6?), new springs, new pushrods after I get the measurements from the other stuff, dual exhaust w/ ceramic headers is already waiting to get installed. He builds some pretty awesome engines & I trust his judgement, I would like to get some feedback to see how radical some of you guys have gone & what combos work the best for all around performance. Thanx a bunch,,
Bill