I opened up an engine i got from the boneyard and it has a roller cam... I know nothing about them...
Are Roller cams better than flat tappet?
Also I need to buy a new cam... Summit has a bunch for a $100 can anyone help me select a great cam for moderate street performance?
Thanks a bunch!

 

rollers are wayyy better then flat tappet. No break in period to screw up, more efficient, better ramp rates...

if you're doing nothing else to the motor (IIRC you just need it running?) don't get anything too powerful. You don't want to have to modify the heads for more lift eh?

Try a used (or new I guess), LT1 cam or something.. It'd be better then the TBI peanut you have now. Upgrade valve springs to match.

 

can you find me a decent one on summit that cheap? Im not trying to be lazy just need to order it today and i dont know much about rollers

 

I'm not so hot with roller cams either.

Summit didn't seem to have what I had in mind.

Perhaps try Gm parts direct or something. I was actually thinking of checking a 4th gen website, those guys take out their LT1 cams and upgrade, so they'd probably be selling a used LT1 cam for pocket change.

 

Isn't this going in that Caprice motor you got?

You're not going to find a roller cam on Summit for less than $100. Forget that. Rollers are more in the $250-300 range.

One thing you might want to try, is check eBay for used LT1 cams. Try to get one of the F car or Y car ones, NOT the B car ones. You can usually pick them up for $50-100. If somebody doesn't tell you what kind of motor it came out of, it's almost certainly the B car (Impala/Roadmaster) one. That one is REALLY weenie, hardly worth the effort of changing out from what you already have.

Another good way to go would be to locate a take-out ZZ4 cam. You can find those on eBay too, for just a little more $$$, but not too bad; $125 or so is typical. Usually those are brand-new, people just take them out of their now ZZ4 motors and put something else in, so you can about always find one that has zero run-time on it.

 

how do i know if I have a hydraulic roller or mechanical roller?
So i will try and find an Lt1 or ZZ4 cam... how about Lt4?

 

You don't have to concern yourself with solid rollers. AFAIK none have ever been used in any stock engine from any mfr. Forget about those.

There aren't alot of used LT4 cams running around; and new ones will be well in excess of any $100 kind of price.

If you're talking about the LT4 HOT cam, it's too much cam for a stock TBI system, without a bunch of tuning. Same deal about finding one used.... they're pretty much non-existent. And it costs well over $200 new. Not really an option for a sub-low-budget just-get-it-running type situation.

 

I have a $200 gift card for autozone, which "stock" cam would you get. Lt1 what year?

 

hey nelapse, isn't your car carbed? you shouldn't have to worry about stuff that isn't tame enough for the tbi system.

i dig this cam, and don't you have some 416 heads or something you could work over and have the guides milled to handle the lift?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SB-CH...spagenameZWDVW

and here is another good one
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SBC-R...spagenameZWDVW

 

Someone wants to sell me a LT4 cam, and its good to know that since I have a carb it doesnt matter! You guys think this Lt4 will work with this carb set up?

 

only thing i can think of is this:

are you running a mechanical fuel pump or a factory intank electric fuel pump?

reason is the stock lt1 and lt4 cams do not have a fuel pump lobe machined into them.

also, what cylinder heads are you gonna run?

 

I have electric in tank pump with FPR. The heads I will run are these
14102193...87-up...305/350......1.94"/1.5" valves
You think everything will work out for this LT4 Cam with stock stuff?

 

no, you'll need to make sure the guides are clearanced and have the proper springs in them. and i wouldn't use those if you can avoid it as they don't flow that well. what did you have on the old 305?

 

14014416...80-86...305..........1.84"/1.5" valves, 58cc chambers

462624.....75-86...350/400......76cc chamber, 1.72/1.5, 1.94/1.5 or 2.02/1.6 valves

14102193...87-up...305/350......1.94"/1.5" valves

these are what I have for heads. I have four sets and two of the 193's

 

use the 416's. take the valves out of one of the 1.94/1.5 heads and have them installed in the 416's. while you have them apart, do a quick bowl blend and put a backcut on the valves. put them together with some fresh valve springs and you should be good to go.

and with a .041" head gasket, you'll be right at 10.2:1 c/r (basing this on a stock flattop four valve relief piston) and that will be just fine with 92/93 octane fuel.

what carb/intake are you running?

 

Nova knows his stuff here. I'm running ported 416's, and a flat tappet cam, and I like the setup. If you want some info on what to do with 416 heads, read just about any port F-bird88 has made on them, among others. I also made a post about hand backcutting your valves, you use a drill (press being easiest), and some sandpaper. It's basically a free 5+ HP.
I'm running .535" lift on 416's, no guide boss machining, and i'm running positive stem seals. Just get matching springs, and aftermarket offset locks, so the heads will be ok with that lift.
My ported 416's came out to 64cc chambers, with a bit of deshrouding and polishing.

 

Okay, I can do the back cuts no problem ive practiced one with a drill and grinding wheel., but what are bowl bends?

I am using an Edelbrock 650 and performer intake right now...
The compression is bit high which i do not mind.
With this complete set up, add Hooker 2055;s and 3" cats all the way back...
how much Hp you think I will be dealing with in the ball park?

 

if you stick with the current setup, your lookin' at a solid 300hp combo.

with a better intake (performer rpm or holley street dominator) and a better carb (that motor could utilize a 750 double pumper) i'd say it'd be a bit higher

you'll have to do some research on the bowl blend. i can't figure out how to describe it without pictures. but basically you'll be cleaning up the area directly behind the valve. i did this on my 113 heads that are on my 305 and it's been a 12.50 so far. the same exact combo with 50 more cubes on my old 350 went 12.16@110mph with more in her. i didn't even touch the runners.

 

Oh okay I know what you are talking about now yeah no problem. I have some carbide bits. So I should concentrate on the bowl area instead of the shrouding part of the valves (outside part) I have a small book on porting but they say to do it right it would take approx 8 hours to do a full port job.

 

it wouldn't be a bad idea to work on deshrouding as well. if you have the time to do it right, then do it right. this will also make the chamber a bit larger and will probably lower the c/r a bit...which wouldn't be a bad thing. somewhere around 10:1 would be ideal.

 

also is new valve springs a complete must? Im actually kinda happy I get to use these heads. I get to take back those new expensive *** valve covers that i really didnt want to buy so im actually stoked lol. As for the intake, could I just not port the intake manny, and I will try and get a better carb. You recommend a holly 750?
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Well I have to wait to get this cam, so this will be the first time I have taken a head apart. Ive put them on and off a million times but really never taken off the valves. Id like to keep the budget to a min.... I know I will need new valve seals and whatelse is an absolute must?

 

new valve springs would be a good idea. i picked up some comp-981's from ebay for like $60 shipped so there are good deals out there. also, you'll need to cut for new valve seats...though i think it'd be a good idea to have the machine shop do that...along with a valve job. your not going to be able to do this for free, but i think you could do it on a decent budget...you just gotta keep your eyes out for good deals on ebay and the classifieds and stuff.

 

Im not trying to be lazy, im just ignorant, but give me a complete list of what I need and what to do so i can call a machine shop and get this stuff done. Thanks dude

 

Okay I found someone who is willing to sell LT4 hot cam and LT1 cam which one you think i should get?

 

210*/228*@.050 .492"/.492" and a 112lsa...i like that.

the lt4 hotcam sir. just make sure you pick up some springs that will work with it. the 981-16 comp springs will work. you'll need new seals for sure. i've only built up a set of heads once, so it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to go down to the machine shop and have a conversation about the heads with your machinist. this way you can get everything HE wants to be able to do this. i'm not exactly sure what's involved in putting in larger valves as i've never done it myself.

 

If you put swirlies on this motor, you should keep the cam small. Reason being, it doesn't matter how far you open the valve, if the port doesn't flow; the valve isn't the restriction, so increasing the cam size does nothing. Plus, since those heads have no flow, they have no RPM capability; so if you put a cam in that moves the RPM band up too high, then you have a motor that's a slug down low because of the big cam, and a slug up high because of the inferior heads. In other words, the worst of both worlds.

The name of the game is THE COMBO. Make all the parts work together, don't think that one of them is going to "compensate" somehow for the shortcomings of another. Instead, pick parts whose strong points all agree, and operate the engine in such a way as to take advantage of that strength; rather than fighting each other.

If on the other hand you put some non-swirlies on it, then you can have some success with the bigger cam; because then, the valve might be the limit to the flow (in other words, you can increase the total flow by increasing the valve opening), and there will be more potential for upper RPM operation. I cannot emphasize strongly enough, that if you want this thing to run good with a bigger cam, DON'T run the swirlies. If you want a tractor motor, low RPM grunt to work with yerbasic stock converter & 2.73 gear type of motor and you're not going to race it or anything, then they're OK; but if you want any kind of "performance" at all, they are THE WRONG THING.

 

Then what do you suggest? Everything made sense so far until you threw the wrench in? What are your suggestions. Nova you have any input on this bro?

 

as sofakingdom mentioned a handful of posts ago, THE 416 heads! If you port them up a bit, heck, even bowl work would help, those would be great.

The swirlies would be ok, but keep the cam small on duration.

 

what are swirlies? the 416's? or the 193's?

 

193's
Looking in the bowl area, you can see this "step" thing, that induces swirl.... and hurts top end flow.

416's are normal heads.

 

so everyone agrees on the 416? right those are the non swirlies

 

Right; the 193s have the swirl-port "feature". It's a TBI-specific deal: TBI was never meant as a "performance" induction system, but rather as more of a "workhorse" design; and these heads are part of that package.

No matter what the van guy tells you about how great his van runs (which I will absolutely not dispute, having no personal knowledge whatsoever of his van), in all of the real world out here, NOBODY YET (or, nobody else, anyway) has taken regular heads OFF OF a motor, and put swirlies ON, and got the motor to run BETTER. Doesn't work that way. ALWAYS works the other way. You gotta always take this "my motor runs great" type of talk with a grain of salt: yeah, it might run great, might even have time slips or other data to back up the claim; the owner might be totally happy with power, gas mileage, reliability, whatever; but does that mean it's as good as it can get? more importantly, does that mean that SOMEBODY ELSE SHOULD DO THE SAME THING? or that SOMETHING ELSE WOULDN'T WORK BETTER? Not neccessarily. This is in that class of things.

Again, if you want a budget, daily-driver, just-get-it-running, slap-it-together-fast-and-cheap type of motor, and the 193s are in better shape or whatever and therefore are the preferred choice for reasons other than power potential, then USE A SMALLER CAM; but if you want performance, i.e. you're concerned enough about power to spend money on a larger cam, and head machine work, USE SOME OTHER HEADS. Either/or. Not both. You've come to a fork in the road, and half of you can't go one way and half the other.

Not that you "don't want the 193s"; rather, if you DO want to use them, build a motor that's compatible with them, and don't try to make them do something that they can't do.

 

hey sofakindom...we already discussed using the 416's in place of the 193's. don't worry, he's not gonna put the 193's back on the motor.

the only role the 193's are playing in this plan it to be a donor for the larger 1.94 intake valves.

 

I will use the 416's then they are in great shape... so again... what parts do i have to buy to bring in the machine shop... im not looking for race heads just good enough to run this LT4 cam

 

OK then. As long as we've got a match among the parts, and it fits the budget.

Comp 981 springs, along with the retainers & keepers that go with them; or the equivalnet package from Crane, Lunati, Isky, etc. NOT K-Motion or GM. Stick with the products of an actual cam company. You might find that if you buy them through the machine shop, they'll sell them to you for the same as what Summit or whoever might; or your machine shop work might miraculously be cheaper if you buy the parts through the shop. Don't automatically assume that a lower price for the parts, means a lower cost for the total job.

The only machine work you should need is cleanup; maybe the guides cut for some sort of positive seals (they may already be of a suitable size, the shop should be able to measure them and tell you); seats cut for the larger valves; the usual valve job; & enough milling to clean up the decks (keep that to a minimum).

 

new valve seals, new valve springs (comp 981-16) and the 1.94 intake valves from the 193 heads. take them all to the machine shop and make sure you have him check clearances between the keeper and the valve guids. make sure there is atleast enough clearance for .500" lift. actually, .525" would be better, just to be safe.

 

will my stock pushrods work fine? I bought a new set already

 

heres the deal... I called the cylinder head shop and told them what i wanted to do, after he was done laughing and told me the heads I am going to use are worthless he then told me it would all cost $450.00 not including parts... I really do not know what to do... i do not have that kinda cash. Plus the LT4 cam has already been bought and is on its way
he said this is mostly due to the double spring valve springs... what if i use the behive kind? This is pretty fusterating..

 

are they for a roller motor? the roller cam pushrods are far shorter than regular flat tappet pushrods

 

yes they are for the rollers. i scored them for free so Im stuck with them

 

what is mostly effected by the double spring valve springs? cost? the 981-16 springs are a direct replacement for factory springs so no machining is required for them to fit.. talk to Eric and see if he's got a machinist that will work with you.

also, ask the guy if he'd be willing to make a payment plan or something...so much a week or something...

 

I could buy new heads for that price... i felt as if he didnt want to give me the time of day anyways... so let me recap here.... do a search and find out if someone else has used these springs on 416's i guess.... i refuse to pay that. yeah he was like "I dont understand why you would waste your time doing this... they are just 305 heads and they wont do anything." what a bummer

 

right...rich aman has been 10.98@120mph with his n/a 305 in his h/stock 1986 camaro. the heads he's running on his car still have the factory sized valves in them and untouched runners/bowls. i'm sorry, i don't believe they are crap. shoot, keep the 1.84 valve in it. put the good 981 springs on it and make sure you have clearance for the lift and be done with it. i bet it'll still run well. (low 13's for SURE)
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some springs for you:
eBay Motors: COMP CAMS SINGLE OUTER SPRINGS 1.254 DIAMETER #981-16 (item 8075503537 end time Jun-24-06 07:34:19 PDT)

 

I just dont understand why it cost so much to get these springs installed? takes two seconds to get the spring off... what is really the issue for getting these installed

 

What are the prices for the various parts of the work? i.e., how much to punch out the seats, how much for the valve job, how much to mill, etc.? It may turn out that he's expecting to do more than you need.

Also, you've got this stack of possibly rebuildable cores sitting there; would he take any of those in trade?

 

Summit has them for the exact same price... cept i dont have to pay a handing fee so i went ahead and bouoght those ebay ones you showed me...
now i have to find the retainers and all that little stuff?

 

my machinist told me the 305 were garbage too... He also said the ports were 150cc, the chambers 58cc, and there was NO WAY I could enlarge the chambers into the 60cc range, to drop by CR to a manageable range...

I got him to cc my chambers when I was done porting them, 64cc... I didn't bother wasting my breath to rub it in. He also mentioned, in a rather quiet way "hmm, yea, I suppose you did do a pretty good job with porting those..."
They are very much underrated heads, not big in the aftermarket world. That builder is probably used to bolting on AFR heads, your budget shows that's not an option. Seriously, do a search on F-bird88's results, and sitting bulls. Once I get my carb tuned in reasonably right, I WILL get it dyno tuned, and show what kind of results I got.

ask your machinist if he recommends using your other heads instead. I'd bet when he sees what your choices are, he'll stick with the 416's. We're not claiming they're the best heads in existence, but compared to most other stock GM heads (either smog 76cc junk, or swirl port junk), they start to look pretty good.

I paid close to that much in machining for my heads. I got a FULL job done, $320 to hot tank, bead blast, deck, new bronze guides, install everything.... Plus $80 to cut for bigger intakes, $90 parts cost for positive stem seals, $80 for Engine tech brand springs.. etc. You don't *need* all that stuff done.

Those 981 springs fit in factory pockets. They are a "standard" high performance 1.25" OD SINGLE spring. Just about every brand name makes a set like that, the spring force #'s are *slightly* different, but what's a few lbs between friends right? I got somewhat cheap ones, as that's what my builder decided to use. *shrug*, beauty is, HE recommended them, if a valve spring fails, and I paid $90 to him for them (large markup), I can bring it back and raise holy hell until he makes it right.

Other machining: remember, if you have to buy a new positive valve seal anyway, you can either buy the one that needs machining, or buy the one that doesn't need machining eh? Pays to know. I used ones that clamp on the valve guide boss, and works with a STOCK boss, no machining required. Felpro makes a set like this, 772577 or something like that... Lots of 7's in the part number If you think the guides are in decent shape, don't get new ones put in, save $100 there. Use a straight edge, and check the deck with a feeler gauge, does it NEED to be decked? .005" or something is acceptable with a composite gasket. Install this stuff yourself, save $ there. A valve spring compresser can be rented for free from autozone (right guys?).
If you're trying to save the $$$, you don't even have to bring in the heads at all. However longevity, and performance can be gained by getting some $$machine work$$ done.

 

I asked him about all the cores I had, he told me "So, what exactly you want me to do? I dont want your junk.' I really, do not want to do business with these people but they are the only cyl head shop in town

 

Well, that's no surprise; those cores are extremely plentiful. Still, if he'd give you $50 for the whole pile, that's $50.

Like I said, there's not all that much machine work to do here. The big ticket item is cutting the seats for the larger valves: that by itself is probably $200 or so. The springs we're all telling you to use are a direct drop-in for stock ones, so there's no work required to change over to them. Cutting the guides might not be necessary at all, if they're of a size that some part # of seals that you can buy, will fit over them; IIRC the FelPro and similar positive seals are about .585" ID, and will fit over guides up to about .610" or so. If your particular heads are in that .590" - .600" range, you might not need any work to those at all.

In short, I'm not seeing $450 of work there.

Maybe he's the only guy in YOUR town; but how about in the next town up the road? There's bound to be some racing going on in your area, in fact I KNOW there is, especially dirt-track (which is who you want to hook up with). You need a machinist that will do what you ask and give you advice about the pieces you hand him, not get on his high horse and call you an idiot because you're not spending gigabucks; nobody should have to listen to a bunch of that when they're the paying customer. Surely there's more than one guy within driving distance of you, that can do this, and won't try to bend you over and treat you like .... what he's treating you like.

 

what if I just stuck with the stock valves? How much difference would it really make if i just stayed with stock valves for a while?