What Hydraulic Roller Camshafts do you guys think are the best performing? I have a motor from an 89 GTA, so I need a roller cam. Do I use the stock lifters? Can I use a hydraulic flat tappet cam with new lifters, or is that not a good idea anyways? What should I accompany the new cam with (i.e. ported heads, performance computer, etc.)? Also, does Competition Cams make hydraulic roller camshafts? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

if you're asking for a product endorsement i like lunati cams. if you use a hydrolic roller you can use stock hydrolic roller lifters. you can also use a flat tappet cam and hydrolic, or solid lifters, or you could go with aftermarket roller and lifters. if you're engine is a 89 it would of came with the hydrolic roller.

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as far as what else do you do, it depends on how fast you want to go and how much money you got. If you are going with a mild hyd-roller, the existing heads will be fine.

You should have previously made intake and exhaust improvements and these will help the CAM provide more HP and torque. Auto trans cars should always consider a higher stall converter when you put in a cam. That is the only way you will get the motor into the power band sooner (that and gears).

 

Comp makes 2 lines of hydraulic rollers; one is intended for FI, the other more for carb setups.

I lived in Memphis for a long time so I have much firsthand experience with both Comp and Lunati. They are both excellent companies. Lunati caters more to the serious sportsman racer than the street or street/strip side of things; Comp does lots of street and pro racer stuff (up to and including Winston Cup). Either company can supply you with a quality product.

The first thing I would do in conjunction with a cam is a better exhaust, starting with headers. If you don't already have a good exhaust, 3" all the way from the Y-pipe back, get that too. Don't try to fight the stock exhasut unless you've got a L69 car.

Most cams will give you enough lift that you'll have to replace the valve springs. If you don't, you will risk one breaking and dropping the valve into the cylinder. Or, you may end up with "coil bind" where the springs compress to the point that adjacent turns of wire are mashed together, which will rapidly destroy the cam, lifters, pushrods, rockers, or studs. In both cases this is due to metal being essentially incompressible.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."

 

Hydraulic roller camshafts generally give better power levels compared to comperable flat tappet cams because the rollers allow a more aggressive lift profile to be used, which opens the valve faster. Since you already have a stock hydraulic roller system, stick with that type of camshaft. You'll be much better off than trying to switch to a flat tappet cam. Every major cam manufacturer makes hydraulic roller camshafts.

There is no such thing as a "best camshaft". Camshafts need to be chosen very carefully, with an eye towards the rest of the motor buildup, because the rest of the motor needs to work in harmony with the camshaft. If you install a high lift, long duration cam in a car and help it out with decent flowing heads, improved intake, and better headers, you will have a good system. But if you install the same high lift long duration cam in an otherwise stock engine, you may actually decrease your performance because of the mismatch of components.

You can get improved performance on your stock motor with a moderate profile on a hydraulic roller camshaft, but if you go more extreme on the cam you will NEED to augment the camshaft with more engine mods in order to realize the benefits that the camshaft is trying to give you.



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