yes, every gen 1 sbc (as far as i know) came with a 1.5 ratio rocker

oh, thanx, im learnin all kinds of stuff today lol...

shoulda learnt before ya bought

yea i just kind of talked it over with a guy from lunati and trusted what he said was right when he told me this would be the cam to get...

the cam folks are usually pretty good at recommending an off the shelf cam...providing you give them the right information...if you just told him it needs to be under .5" lift..well there ya go

no i didnt say that at all... i said 350, told him the bolt on mods and said i wanted power but a daily driver too and he recommended the cam i got.

how he can recommend a cam with out knowing which cylinder head you'll be using is beyond me

i just told him it was a 350 out of a full size jimmy...

vortecs are the best flowing facotry cheapest iron head for that much lift you will have to have them modified like others have told you if you go to sdpc2000.com they sell modified vortecs that will handle .550 lift that way if you vortecs get a set of 1.6 roller rockers to that cam a rpm air gap vortec intake and with the right carb (ditch the shitty edel carb for a 750 holley dp) gears (4.10's)and exhaust (1 3/4 long tubes) and a better xe268 or 274 cam and run low 12's with your goodwrench cast piston motor. with any 64cc head use the felpro performance .015 thickness head gasket then spray the **** out of it and run 11's

save your money and get the vortecs/intake/rockers and any other stuff needed to install them. youll thank yourself.
i had a friend running a pretty good sized cam in his 350tpi. he switched the heads and intake to the vortec setup with single plane/carb and picked up nearly a full second in the 1/8 and several mph. car ran soo much better. hopefully your pistons arent way too dished.

All hope is lost, then, because they are way dished.

why is it bad that the pistons are dished??

Dished equals low compression.The voodoo cams Luniti offers are computer pics,they enter the engine specs in the computer,and the computer tells them what works with that combo,they dont include trany(stall speed)rear end gears.The BRACKET MASTER Luniti cams are way better than the Voodoo cams,they use a straight pattern,are made for high rev engines.You must use flat top pistons with these cams,and World heads,Vortech,Dart 2,or free flowing factory heads are a must with these cams.The specs are as follows:
470/470-280/280 @50 224
480/480-292/292 @50 230
490/490-300/300 @50 235
500/500-312/312 @50 245
That is just a few of the listings,they will grind you a Bracket Master like I use 545 lift @50 250,RPM RANGE IS 3200 TO 7500 rpm.It must be used with a straight drive,or with a 3200 rpm stall speed.These cams love lots of fuel,and you must have valve springs up to 600 lift,these specs on these cams are with 1.5 roller rockers,with 1.6 roller rockers specs will change greatly.You must use a single plane intake and carb no smaller than 700 cfm with these cams.These cams are for racing,I ride my car on the street,and it works well,but you have to stay in the power band(3200 rpm and up)for me.When my cam hits 3200 rpm,it is like a rocket all the way to 7500 rpm,it keeps pulling hard to 7500 rpm.

if thats the case, use a .015" steel headgasket on it to help a little bit with compression.... at least.



or save up for a supercharger and leave motor alone.

it would have decent compression with 64 cc heads wouldnt it? I'm thinking about just using the 416 heads and if i had some work done to them they would be fine right?

depends on the goodwrench crate 350.

the BASE 290 hp GM Performnce parts offering has dished pistons and 8.5 to one compression with 76 cc chambers. 64's would really bump that up to a better 9 to 1 compression plus which will work great

I think it has lower hp than than cause its not the gmpp 350, its just a replacement motor, but the pistons will be dished from what ive heard... the 416 heads are 64 cc's right?

Holy cow this is a popular thread....
As I said before;
I'm using 416 heads on my 350.

Split pattern cams typically work better on factory heads which have a poor exhaust flow, vs the intake flow. Straight pattern cams typically work better with high end aftermarket heads with better exhaust flow. Typically is the key word. Either way it's hard to go wrong

by the sounds of it, it is hard to go wrong... i have a shop that will deck the heads, install springs and a 3 angle valve job for approx. 200 bux... thats a pretty good price isn't it? i should also get them ported right? during the porting process will tey be gasket matched... yea i am getting A LOT of possitiv info from this thread... this site is EXTREMELY useful!!

yes thats a fair price! make sure they do a good job on it. make sure the heads can handle .500 lift cams.

i am pretty sure most of those goodwrench motors are 12 cc dish which will make a 58 cc head fine. dont mill anymore tho. that will be fine. If you get your block zero decked, run a .039-.040 gasket. if not, measure the piston to deck clearance and run a gasket that will put your quench at .035-.045"

My L98 shortblock is .025" in the hole so a .015" steel shim gasket would work great

yea i def will, i asked about the lift and the guy said it would be fine but ill have him check anyways, ill look at the pistons when i get the heads off, im having him just deck it so its true. i dont think im having any work done on the block but should i still run shim gaskets anyways?

when you get the heads off, take a look at the pistons and look for the tell tell signs of a dish take some pics of it if you can

then bring one of them up to TDC as best you can and measure how far down they are in the hole compared to the engine deck. if its more than .010", then i'd run a difference gasket than standard .039-.040 gaskets. you want the quench distance, or total distance from the piston to cylinder head deck to be .035-.045". thats gasket thickness plus piston in hole depth.

ok i will do that... what would i measure that with... i think i can get my hands on a hole depth micrometer that would work but that wouldnt be for a few days...

and pistons rock...press down on one end and measure the other

how much do they usually rock... lk 5 thousandths?

Measure at the front or back of the cylinder (vs. the top or bottom), and the piston won't rock.

yup that makes sense... i will do that, thanks.

no, when a motor is running pistons rock...measure it like the piston is rocking...the entire pushing down on one end is to mimic that movement

Just out of curiosity, as I just finished my very first season of 1320 racing and took home 6 trophies for my $$$$ and trouble; what level of mechanical abilities do you have? And have you put much quarter mile in yet??

I think what the guys who keep hinting to you about going with the Vortec route are trying to save you a lot of headaches and wasted money. If you're really good with wrenching and have some machining abilities, there's a bunch of the other suggested stuff you can do.

Don't know if this will apply to you, but given your quite small $$$ budget, you might just work on getting your new hot-rod consistant. It cost me a heck of a bunch more than $500 just to get my car to consistantly launch, let alone dialing in an ET number that I could consistantly hit.

I think what you need to tell us is if you just plan on going out to see what your factory set up will take before you start blowing parts up or if you're interested in taking home some $3.00 plastic trophies. I myself picked winning over speed for this past year. I ended up needing to slow my car down to where I could consistantly nail 14.9 ET's and average my RT's below point O.OXX.

So perhaps you should hit the wrecking yard and pull a vortec system off a junked engine unless you have some really thorough mechanical skills or a heck of a lot more money. I spent $5000 on my 88 IROC just getting everything sorted out so I could have a bullet proof daily driver and a Wed night rocket. These cars can suck up money faster than an angry ex-wife.

To help with the budget, I used this site to build my IROC on paper from end to end; got out the Jegs&Summit catalogs to price it out, and figured out what paying someone else was going to cost me versus just buying a higher grade package that I could bolt together myself.

Please don't take this Thread Reply as a waste when you were only asking about your cam and engine potential. You don't need a stranger to know it's gonna take a lot more than that if you want any consistancy...

What are your thoughts about the future of this car? I do have a couple buddies that specialize in buying $1500 cars and thrashing them on the track till they break; financially they ended up being much more cash free than thise of us who are building one specific race ride.
Give JesasaurusRex's input some real thought; and as other's have mentioned: it is so dog gone addicting!!!! You'll spend that $500 just getting ready for the first meet of the season- Best of Luck sorting out the engine package! Nitro-Nicky

yea i am mechanically inclined, i know about motors and what to do with them, but i dont have a whole lot of experience. i have not run the 1/4 mile yet. i do take everbody seriously and i think about everybodys opinions then make a choice based on cost/hp.

I ran 416's with stock valves on a 350 for a while and they were all right. Mine were bone stock though I had a comp XE262 they don't flow the air my dart's do, but they didn't cost as much either. I liked them if I spent more time on the street I would have probably left them, watch your compression mine was above 11-1

i will be spending 95% of my time on the street... did you have valve springs? how much trouble did you have with that compression? i was told mine would be around 9.5-1.

i think yours will be at 10.1 to 1 if you have 12cc dished pistons and that 58cc chamber

64cc will be 9.5 to 1

at what CR would I run into trouble running 91 or 93 octane? and would octane booster really make a difference?

i think you can do 10 to 1 on iron if you use good 93 octane gas and keep your timing conservative

static compression numbers mean nothing

9.5:1 dynamic is probably as much as i'd run with 91 octane (highest here in cali ). Conservative on the timing and if you keep the motor cool you'll be surprised what u can get away with. Keep the quench tight and ull be alright.

yea luckily i can get 93 in most places here... if i cant get my hands on a depth mic. what should i measure the quench with? hopefully it will stay cool, i have a 180 thermostat and new (remanufactured) water pump.

u need a dial indicator and one of those tdc stand type deals

ok i will see if i can get a hold of that.

i really dont think you can run 9.5 to 1 DYNAMIC compression on a street pump gas motor. You want dynamic in the 7.5-8.5. Most cams will give you that with a 9.5-10 to 1 static compression. Race motors run 9 and over.

ive run a 9.5:1 on 91 octane with no ping...i'm just remembering now tho that you're not running aluminum heads...my bust, 8.5:1 for iron is about as high as id go

whats the difference between static and dynamic? so can i get away with these heads... im having them ported, how much will that do?

That will do absolutely nothing, you need to figure out your static compression ratio first and then use a calculator and it takes into account your cam timing and rod length

http://www.kb-silvolite.com/calc.php?action=comp

use that calculator for both

i got 10.5 with a shim gasket for static compression, but i dont know the rod length or intake closing point... does anyone know these?

using your 219/227 cam you will be fine dynamic wise with the 64 cc head or the 58cc head.

i dont have the specs for that cam tho, but based on similar cams, the 64 cc heads will be fine at near 8.0 to 1 DCR, and the 58 is on the limit at 8.55 to 1 DCR. they both should use 93 octane and a safe tune timing wise.

ok so where should the timing be set... thats one area that i havnt worked with... should it be advanced at all or retarded?

i'd probly run 32 degrees timing at WOT to start. I dont think it will need much more than that. base timing can be 8-12. you can try 34 but make sure you check to see if its knocking or detonating.

im going to be using the HEI from the 305 and it doesnt have a vaccum advance... is their a kit i could buy cheap? you are talking about the timing with a vaccum advance right?

if you use a vacumm advance dizzy that could be fine. else get a mechanical advance one. I'm a EFI guy so i dont understand carbs and such all that much. I'm not sure what dizzy the old 305 you have had, if its not vacuum advance then maybe its mechanical.

either way i'm just saying set your full idle timing to like 18-23 degrees (i think, i'm a EFI guy so i am guessing bassed on what my motor liked and what other modded efi motors like) and run a full advance by 3500rpms and try 30-34 degrees. It may handle more or maybe not. its up to you to decide and try it to see what it likes.

alright thanks for the info.