All you tuners out there, how much cam can be used on a street motor and it still be very street driveable. I am not talking a weekend car that has a very rough idle and you would not want to take it cross country. I am talking a daily driver that you would drive anywhere without hesitation. We will base the cam size on a 350 cubic inch motor with 10 to 1 compression with aluminum heads. The lt4 hot cam has 218-228 duration and 112 lobe center I think and is very street driveable. This is what I am talking about. I have heard that anything over 236 duration @50 is too big but I don't know anything about tuning so anyone with experience share your story and cam size and how streetable it is.

 

I have tuned the 280XFI in a 360" motor, just a bored over 350. Lopes hard but streetable in my opinion. Could be daily driver but thats highly dependent on WHO is driving and your definition of daily driver. That cam in a lighter 3rd gen with good heads/intake is a high 11 second car.

If you like the hotcam, you'd be ok with the 280xfi. Do NOT go bigger than that.

280 is a 230/236 on a 113 lsa. it will drive on a stock converter but does have alot of low end loss. Really wants 3.73 gears atleast. Track car should use close to 4000 stall for best times. We ran 3600. Ran strong.

My 383 used a 230/245 cam on a 109 LSA. Loped hard too, but streetable as can be. Sounded incredibly mean but never skipped a beat on the street. Very driveable although it wasnt a daily driver it was a daily summer driver for the most part. I took it out as much as I could. Only on nice days. This cam in a 355 would be abit too much. Too much overlap. Low end would be soggy. Cam would pull to over 7K in a 355. It pulled to 6800 in my 383.

Both cars are MAF tuned. Speed density could work too.

You really need to look at overlap to determine idle quality. Cams under 8-9 degs of overlap measured at .050" duration numbers in a 350 are great for more Daily street drivers IMO. That would be cams in the 60 deg and less range at advertised duration numbers but you can have lazy lobes at .050 with higher durations at advertised .006" lift and still idle smooth. Stock cams are like this so I usually look at .050" overlap numbers.

280XFI is 230/236 on a 113 which has 7 deg of overlap or 57 deg using advertised duration of 280/286. LT4 hotcam is -1 deg at .050 and I believe somewhere around 60-61 deg at advertised durations. My cam in the 383 has 19.5 deg....my new cam in my 401 turbo car will have 22 deg. Larger motors can take more overlap. A good tune however can make alot of big cammed cars work well.