I currently have a caprice "cop" car motor in my camaro. It has lo5 heads and I was wondering whats the max lift I could use on the cam?

Springs and everything have less than 6k miles on them.

PaceParts advertises this engine as "having over 300hp with a cam swap"

Think its possible? Basically this engine is a lo5 with a l98 cam and 9.6:1 compression.

I want to go ahead and swap cams but I cant do the head swap just yet. Unless I can find a deal on some l98s or something. That would be alot better than the swirl ports im sure.

I have a set of used 193s I bought used, but had recently been rebuilt.

I have a .442"/.465", 214*/224* cam that I was going to use with them. I checked the retainer-to-seal clearance and got .050", which is the bare minimum. That I'm cool with...

I also checked the springs by putting them into a bench vice. I started by measuring them at 1.70" (installed height), then squeezed them to 1.235" (1.70" minus .465"). There was only ~.030" of clearance in the coils. The recommended clearance before coil bind is .060", so that posses a problem. Either I leave it and take the chance of breaking something, spend $50 for a new cam (.420"/.442"), or $60 for new springs.

I'll take the springs, thank you very much.

.44 or .45 would be at or near the limit for stock springs and stock height valve guides, around .47 would be the limit of pull out studs. .47 would be around the limit of springs in stock diameter

Are you talking about the 12513151 engine with a 0.360 intake lift, 0.385 exhaust lift, 110-degree lobe separation cam? If so, that is not an L98 cam, nor is that a 9C1 police engine. The L98 cam has over .400 lift and about 5 degrees or so more lobe separation. If you upgraded the cam on this engine, you probably wouldn't want to keep the stock valve springs.

The materials I got with the motor said it contained a l98 cam. Also said it was a police car motor. Who knows tho.

I may be getting a set of l98 heads soon I will have alittle work done to them and see what I can do with them.

The cam in that motor is WEAK...I though the l98 cam was bad but under .400 lift thats bad. I may go ahead and upgrade to a lt4 cam when I get the l98 heads. That should be a nice improvement.