I'm looking for a cam to make decent power for my stock LO3. I may be getting better flowing heads soon, but for now I'm working with the stockers. I don't mind a lopey idle as long as the car would still be drivable. Any ideas?

 

LT1

 

you dont want to much more lift than that on a 305 (.447/.459)

 

I thought the LT1 cam was fairly tame. Like I said, idle quality is not a factor. Theres gotta be a more aggressive cam than the LT1.

 

ZZ4 cam, jokerRS and somebody else said that it is lopey and rough

 

Now, I don't just want a rough idle! But I'll put up with a rough idle for the sake of performance.

 

they dont always go together but they do many times. rough idling in short because it is setup for higher RPM power

 

teh zz4 cam can be tuned in for performance. it will give you a very noticable amount of power adn shoudl have a fairly wicked sounding idle.
with stock heads it will eb very very limited though. it is a rather aggressive cam for a 305 and will be beaten to death by teh limits of a set of stock heads. something liek a set of vortec heads or world products torquer 305 heads will work, especially if you have a mild valve job, clean up the castings a little, and have the exhaust ports opened up a little on either head.
it will take a custom burned prom and a holley tb with 350 injectors to safely get more than just trying to drive aroudn out of that cam.
teh LT1 cam has been shown to be worth about 4mph of trap speed with no other mods, add the heads to it and custom tuning and there is no reason it shoudln't yield at least double that. you may get more out of a larger cam like the zz4, but is it worth sacrificing that much more time tuning instead of competeing? only you can answer that one

later
tim

 

how hard would a zz4 cam be to get working with a carbed engine? i was just wondering. whats the lift specs? i know the world heads have a max lift of .560 i dont think you could go .560 without having the computer go crazy. I dont know really

 

the zz4 cam is designed for a carbed engine. After all the zz4 engine is designed to use a carb.

As for a computer car its not so much the lift that affects the computer its the lsa, you want ot maintain at the very least 110 degrees. Most people run 112, newer cars run 114, 115. My buddy not to far from me has a zz4 in his crossfire vette and it works very well. I little rough until it warms up but its in a candian climate. The car came from california and didnt have this problem in the warmer weather.

 

dur I:208 E:221 lift I:.474 E:510 with 1.5 rockers.
NJ is right, This cam will need alot of chip tuning. I dont mind because this is a project that I am doing with my 15 year old son and we don't have a time table. If you are starting with a fairly stock L03 it also needs heads, headers, a free flowing exhaust, and a good intake to work right. If you want to throw a cam in and start enjoying it right away then go with the LT1 cam. I ran it for a year and was able to tune it with a vac afpr. It is good for 4 mph trap speed. I got bored with it be cause it does'nt have a noticable power band.

 

The more vacuum a cam sacrifices the more critical chip tuning will be. The more vacuum a cam sacrifices the lopier the idle will be aswell.

That said, an lt1 cam is a stock cam for cryin out loud. If you have a rough idle with that cam you might want to check out your tune-up or maybe listen to a car with a healthy cam sometime. With the lt1 cam the idle should nearly be smooth as glass almost like an lt1.

judging by the sound of things you arent into the chip side of things yet and taking that into consideration id suggest you go with an lt1 cam or lt4 or l98, etc. A more aggresivecam is going to not run right unless you go in and change things in the chip.

This talk about cams not being compatible with tbi is largely exaggerated. TBI simply meters fuel and air. I will grant that the larger the cam the harder it is to tune but the same is true with carburetion. If you were to say the cam is incompatible with x type manifold or y type heads then youd have a point
Since TBI does the same thing as a carburetor - mix fuel and air- you cannot really say that a camshaft that works well on a carbed setup wont work well on a tbi provided its been tuned correctly.

Max lift is another thing... you want the most that you can get provided your valvessprings are up to it along with your cylinder heads. Lift is not displacement limited, if the swirl port heads still flow more at .600 lift then get a cam that has .600 lift if you can. You might be getting mixed up with duration, as a cam that would seem large and lopey because of duration in a 305 wouldnt even phase a 400 and would idle smoothly


btw I run a 214/224 .474/.498 @112lsa in my 305 with a single plane, 416 ported heads, and edel. headers and it runs pretty well and has a nice lope