Kyzer4689

hey new to the forums hah

just picked up an 88 Firebird Trans Am with a buddy of mine as a project car, its a 5.7L 350, picked it up for 200 bux because the rear end is going.

We are currently tearing the motor apart and slowly redoing it, we plan on making this a strict drag car so we gutted the interior and are building the engine up

we want to throw a good cam for dragging and we need a little help, the setup is a roller in the engine now, would a roller cam go good for the drag setup, my friend thought maybe going tappet would be better so we could put a high lift cam in it, were not going all out for now but what would be a good racing cam and setup to go with? Im not looking for the top of the line stuff as of now but i can pay a decent price hah

thanks for the help guys

SpitotRs305

roller is always a better cam but we will need to know what else you plan to do to the engine...and what you are willing to do to the car...

Kyzer4689

we were looking into the crane blue racer cam 300 degree/ 310 degrees or 290 degree / 300 degree, how would the motor run with that cam in it?

Also this is gonna be a strictly all motor car, no power additions...

SpitotRs305

MORE INFO

well we need alot of info like what CR, what heads, if your gonna get headers, gears...

but that is a pretty big cam you would want lots of CR a big stall and tall gears with long tube headers

85irocz89

We are already running headman long tube headers but we have the stock 350 heads. we are looking for a powerful cam with a rough idle. the rear end needs to be rebuilt and we were going to prob. put like 4.56 gears maybe a little higher. but as of right now we were going to leave the stall converter alone. Do you think that cam is too big for the stock heads?

SpitotRs305

well that depends on what heads and how good you are at porting them but i cant see you coming close with the stock heads... but you will defenitly need a higher stall i think 3-3500rpm depending...

you will need new valve springs also, stockers will never stand up to that cam
you will need screw in rocker studs i dont know if i would trust just pinning them...
and your compression will have to be over 11:1 probably closer to 11.8-9:1+

that cam isnt something you are going to want to run on the street ever... those heads will be the bottleneck no matter what you do to them

that cam will pretty much be horrible in any stock type engine... you want to build a purpose built engine if you are stuck on that cam...

Sonix

iTrader: (1)

Stick with a roller cam. Forget the Crane blue racer, that's a flat tappet right? And a very old grind.

A good hydraulic roller will be awesome, and you can save you lifters. A solid roller would be best, but price it out and see if it's worth it to you.

There's a lot of things to consider when buying a cam, i'd hate to see you waste your cash, and/or get the wrong one. Usually the cam is (in my opinion) what you want to buy LAST on an engine.

-Lay out the purpose of the car
-Lay out how the engine should work, RPM range, N/A or forced, fuel choice, street/strip, cubes
-Make sure you can afford all the necessary other parts, ie, bigger stall, bigger gears, stronger rear, etc
-Build up the bottom end
-Choose heads and intake based on RPM range and cubes
-Pick all the other jazz like carb, distributor, headers etc etc etc.
-Pick your cam. I think it's the one part that has the biggest effect on the cars characteristics that you can buy.

There is a guy who ported those heads and ended up with AFR like results. Crazy 260ish cfm range. Try to find his thread, I think it's in the TPI forum, I think there's 3 parts to it or something. Not sure if that's the route you want to try to take, otherwise look at some aftermarket heads obviously.

85irocz89

thanks a lot for all your help we went with a lunati cam that has a lift of .480 that the factory heads can still support. were basically trying to have a strict race car for fun this summer. so far it's coming along pretty good. but once again thanks a lot for all the help