I'm pulling the l98 out of my 87 transam to do a stock-rebuild on the bottom end and I decided to install a bigger cam.

The motor has headers/ypipe, aftermarket cat-back, holley intake and holley 600 carb, hei dizzy, 2400 stall converter. What cam would I benefit from the most? The heads will be stock. Also I've rebuild 1st gen 350's but never a "roller" motor whats the difference? Will I have to adjust for valve lash?


Thanks for any advice.

 

Motor is the same as any other motor...just has a roller cam. Need 87-99 hydraulic roller lifters (Suggest LS7's as they are drop in good quality and cheap lifters) and the retaining spyder that came stock with the L98.

basically same as a hydraulic flat tappet cam...just need to set the rockers (lifter preload). set the rockers on and snug them up...rotate motor over slowly until exhaust valve begins to open. Adjust the intake valve rocker by feeling pushrod movement (twisting and vertical movement with your fingers) Turn the rocker nut about 1/2-3/4 turn past zero lash which is when pushrod is snug against the rocker and is hard to twist and doesnt move vertically.

Then rotate motor more until intake valve opens, reaches peak lift and is about 2/3 the way closed but not quite all the way shut. Adjust exhaust rocker on that cylinder the same way.

As far as a cam, cheap but strong cam would be LT4 hotcam. I dont think you'd want to go much bigger than that on stock heads. Just need to verify you can handle the .525" lift on the stock heads if you use 1.6 rockers, or .492" lift if you use 1.5's. Some say the spring retainers will hit guide boss at .470-.480 lift. Some have run higher. Use offset retainers or locks and add same amount of shims under the spring cups, you can run around .510-.525" safely.

Beehive spring kit also works well and should give more room to max lift.

Being a carbed car now, you could even do comp cams XE grinds on the tighter 110 LSA... 218/224 or so duration should be plenty for stock heads and work well with that combo.