I bought a roller cam, lifter set and some extras on ebay for a pretty good price but the seller had no specs on the cam, he told me it was out of a '95 police package caprice tho.
Does anyone know which cam this might be?

 

Sounds like monkey-spank to me.

"Out of a police car" or "police interceptor" seems to have replaced the "out of a Vette" type of sucker line as the favorite BS to get people to want something that they otherwise woudn't, and pay extra for it besides. It has all the usual characteristics of such BS; most important above all, it can't be proven false. So it;s very difficult to accuse the seller of lying. That's very imporatnt on eBay, where lying without crossing the line into being able to get caught, has reached an art form.

It's probably a B-body LT1 cam at best. Those are much lamer than the F-body and Y-body ones. But, it might be nothing more than a L05 cam, if the particualr "police car" in question had that.

Sounds like you basically have a used set of lifters.

 

Thanks for the quick reply,
I got lifters and everything needed to convert my flat tappet '88 to a roller, so I would have wanted it even if it came without the camshaft.
Having a small cam isn't nessecarily a bad thing in this case, it means I'll be able to run it without head mods.

 

Yup. The cam is the same one in my 94 LT1 Caprice 9C1 (9C1 = police package code). Is there anything special about the cam used in the police cars? No. The cams used on all 94-96 L99 & LT1 engines, as well as 96-99 L31 engines, were essentially the same as far as lobe sep angle, duration, and lift. The specs for these cams, often called the B car LT1 cam, have been posted in numerous places on Thirdgen.

Is it a good cam? Yes IMO, but then again it was a cam intentionally designed to have excellent low speed torque while retaining decent high speed power. It also was designed knowing that it would be feeding superb-flowing factory heads, so not much lift and duration were needed to do the job. Anyone with LPE heads, or AFR heads, or something similar will tell you that you don't need as much cam if you have good heads --- and that's a good thing because it means you don't need large spring forces in the valvetrain to avoid valve float --- all because the cam is smaller than usual.

Can you use the cam in a 3rd Gen Fcar? Yes.... especially when compared to the peanut cam used in many 305 engines. But most owners of ThirdGens that use LT1 cams opt for the Fcar version of the LT1 cam, not the Bcar one. And that's mostly because you need a bigger cam to offset the not-as-good airflow on the 3rdgen Fcar heads (as compared to LT1/L31 heads). If you search here (on 3rdgen) you'll see what kind of performance the Fcar LT1 cam provides.

FWIW the factory rated the Bcar LT1 at 260 fwhp and the Fcar LT1 at 275 or 285 hp depending on the year. The exhausts are not the same on these two models, nor was the headflow as good on the LT1 Fcars, so it's not quite fair to say that there is a 15 hp difference between them -- but that's a reasonable ballpark number to work with. I don't know what the difference would be on a 3rdgen set of heads on either a 350 or a 305.... and it also depends on the rest of the engine mods. This could get complicated so I'll leave it at that.

If you bought the cam in a package deal with roller lifters+spider, then you probably did ok anyway. And the seller wasn't lying IMO, but there really isn't anything special about the cam for a 94-96 9C1 Caprice. There are 9C1-specific parts that are not found in other Bcars, but the cam isn't one of them. HTH.

 

B-Body LT1 heads flow better than the F-body ones. The main drawbacks are weight and heat retention.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Zepher
B-Body LT1 heads flow better than the F-body ones.[/QUOTE

I think I already said that:

".... The exhausts are not the same on these two models, nor was the headflow as good on the LT1 Fcars,..."

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kdrolt

Quote:

Originally posted by Zepher
B-Body LT1 heads flow better than the F-body ones.[/QUOTE

I think I already said that:

".... The exhausts are not the same on these two models, nor was the headflow as good on the LT1 Fcars,..."

It sounded as if you are saying that the b-body heads don't flow as good as the f-body heads.

 

As long as this thread is still alive...
Does anyone have any numbers for this particular cam?
I did some searches and I wasn't able to find any specific references to the B-body LT1 cam, or whatever it is.
Thanks for the replys.

 

Do you want one? Gimme $20 + shipping for mine.
It's got 40K on it and looks really good.

 

Thanks, But I bought one last wk. It just hasn't arrived yet. I was just curious about the numbers.

 

http://www.automotiverebuilder.com/ar/ar99928.htm

 

Thanks for the link Zephyr, that caprice cam isn't a very hot one is it...(chuckle)

 

no problem.
The cam seems really mild.