from whay i am able to gather the cam in my lg4 is small. i have seen it called "micro" and "peanut" etc. does anyone know the spec for this cam ? how does it compare to the oem "ho" cam? it would seem to me that this is as good a place to start to try to wake it up. another concern i have regarding cam selection is loss of vacuum and the check engine lite.

The L69 HO or the L82 Cam would both be great cams for your engine. I am running the L82 cam in my 305 right now. It pulls decent down low, comes on hard around 2,000 and screams to redline!

It's listed in the Camaro Tech Data section of this board (see the main home page, down the left had side). If memory serves, it's about 179/194* @ .050 and lift of about .360/.385" on a 109* LSA.

Nowadays, even truck engines get 15-20* more duration and a bunch more lift than this wheezer gave.

You can go quite a bit wilder with the cam and the computer won't care. The computer controls on an old carbureted engine are kinda "slow witted" compared to later fuel injected engines and they'll accept a fairly wide range of midifications without lighting the dreaded check engine light.

Here's a cheap cam that works great in mild 305s and 350s:

http://store.summitracing.com/defaul...=egnsearch.asp

It's a very mild cam that won't cause any problems with the computer or vacuum accessories, but compared to your Peanut cam, it's an absolute fire-breather. It will work with your stock valve springs if you don't plan on spinning it past 4500-5000. It also won't cause any problems with reatiner-to-guide clearance or binding up the valve springs if you run it with stock 1.5 rockers.

Lots of people sell this same cam (Edelbrock, Elgin, Summit, etc, etc.) but none of them sell it as cheap as Summit- $80 INCLUDING LIFTERS!

Would I use it myself? Yes, I would. In fact, I have the slightly larger K-1103 cam in my 383 blower motor right now. Lots of people have used these cams with good success.

I still remember when I was like 17 and my Camaro still had the 305 TBI in it, I beat 2 other TBI cars in town by about 3 car lengths each so I thought it was fast. I met a guy with an 86 Monte Carlo SS with the 305 HO, I'm thinking "this things 5 years older than mine and carbeurated I'll kill it", one ride in that and it made me realize my 305 really REALLY sucked.

The HO cam is something like .401" intake and .423" exhaust, IIRC.
I'm using a single-pattern cam with .420" lift in my otherwise stock (internally) 84 LG4. With 230,000 miles on it, it works pretty good for what it is - running to the tune of 14.49 and 98.7 in the ¼.

While we are on the subject of cam swaps, it does'nt look like there is a hell of alot of room to pull a cam out of the engine while it's still in the car. Is there?

While we are on the subject of cam swaps, it does'nt look like there is a hell of alot of room to pull a cam out of the engine while it's still in the car. Is there?

You can if you take the rad and fan(s) out.

I knew that the radiator had to come out but it looked like there would'nt be enough room. There is a support behind the radiator and it looked much closer than the 23 inches or so that a cam is. Thanks for the input.

The HO 305 was a good engine for the time and IMO all 305s should have used that cam. I don't know why GM insisted on the TINY LG4 cam in all there cars and pickups. I know for a fact my Van had the L69 cam same as the camaro and Monte Carlo SS. For a while the only mods were a recurved distributer, different carb calibration, edelbrock performer RPM spreadbore intake, headers, 2 1/2" duals, and an open element air cleaner. I outran countless 350 trucks and even more Honda's! It had great snap and lots of HP for what it was. My guess was about 240 FWHP and 300 ft/lbs of torque.

a hammer will supply the sufficient motivation on that support don't have to beat it to death, just massage it out of the way.

I've found the support to be like -><- that much too close to the engine to yank the cam. Like firebird says, it can be persuaded to give you the tiny fraction of an inch you need.

Allright then I guess I'll give it a little massage. Now I Know I'm in the wrong forum here but I do have to remove the intake. Is it worth replacing the stock intake with lets say the performer? Will the outlay of cash versus any gain make it worth it, is there much room under the hood to clear the Moroso 14" drop base aircleaner I am currently using?

I would junk the entire exhaust system from manifolds to muffler before I'd worry about touching the intake. The stock LG4 exhaust is just absolutely pathetic. Get yourself a good 3" cat-back(check the exhaust board if you need a recomendation), a 3 inch catalytic converter, and some headers and a y-pipe. DON'T by any exhaust parts that are a direct fit for the LG4! Any mods you make to the engine like a better cam or intake will still be held back by that horrible exhaust. Check out the tech article by Damon on adjusting your carb for better performance, that will help too. If you have 2.73 rear gears, changing them out for something like 3.23 or 3.42 will help too without killing your milage.