Hey all, I'm looking at some cams and need help making a decision. The goal is a stock bottom end sbc with a chopy idle. Also the heads are standard vortecs. If I go with a cam that sais the range is 2500-6500, and has a little more lift than these heads can handle in stock form, does that mean the engine needs to be built for the rpm? Would a complete cam kit come with every thing needed for the heads to hold up to the extra lift? Thanks in advance for any input.

 

well for example i bought a cam from comp cams and it is a 292 magnum cam. it has 501 lift on intake and exhaust. i had stock valve springs and ran it for about 500 miles and drag raced it on the weekends. i took it apart to put some cometic head gaskets on for twin turbos and noticed that the valves had been hitting the pistons slightly. three valves got bent in the process. i called up comp cams and they sent me dual valve springs that matched my cam. now if you got the cam kit it will usually come with a timing chain and sprockets, cam, lifters, and valve springs. but also be careful as the springs i recieved were too big for the spring pockets and had to have my head machined. but it also depends on how hard you are on the engine, how high you rev it, and how high the lift is on the cam. now if i wanted a "lopey" idle with some performance i would get a cam a couple sizes smaller than i got. it is a comp cams magnum 270 it has .480 lift with an rpm range of 1800 to 5800 which is perfect for a stock engine. if you go any bigger you will have to buy an aftermarket stall converter.... there are a lot of decisions in choosing a cam as the cam is the "brains" of the engine and will affect the way the intake, rearend gears, compression ratio all affect your engine. do some more research and you'll be very surprised.

 

Im just trying to understand, and I was wondering does the idle get lumpier when the duration is higher?