im lookin to put this in a set of stock vortec heads, what will i be makin roughly with stock internals on a 86 350 block with currently 9.4:1 compression. gonna have a air gap intake and edelbrock 600 with headers. what will i be makin roughly? heres the cam: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Howards-Cams...640#vi-content

 

Id say 325-350ish HP.

 

Im running a much larger cam than that at 9.8:1 compression and Im not putting down 325 even at the flywheel. Theres certain aspects of my build that arent perfect, but on the whole it's pretty average. I'm running long tubes, the functional equivalent of a dual 2.5 exhaust, and a Holley 650 through a manual trans.

 

It looks COMPLETELY WRONG AND MISMATCHED to the heads.

It's a single pattern cam. WRONG.

Look at the Comp XE series, or Lunati Voodoo. Those are of the correct design, which matches the properties of the heads.

 

so are there any dual/split pattern cams with around the same lift so I don't have as much work to do since it's a daily driver and not a strip car, but I do want choppy idle of course, just without insane lift to kill my gas and have to worry about detenation and knocking. vortecs dont need high lift to make power.

 

Just to throw some numbers out there... to give you a frame of reference:

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/h...s/viewall.html

Vortec head 355 on a dyno:
XE268 224/230 - 372hp - 1600-5800
280H 230/230 - 378hp - 2000-6000
XE274 230/236 - 385hp - 1800-6000

And this is a properly built engine with proper tolerances and good quench distances through the most ideal of ideal situations with long tube headers and no accessories etc with the measurement taken at the flywheel. So that should give you a frame of reference for how much cam it takes to hit a certain power level. 350fwhp (through accessories etc) and an ideal chassis setup with proper tires should be able to crack into the 12's with a 3rd gen. The xe274 above has a number of 385hp at the flywheel in ideal situations, not regular fwhp. So keep all that in mind. 350rwhp sbc's really arent as common as people think they are.



What do you make of that? You think some good headers/exhaust (Likely the case in the dyno room) can offset the effect of longer exhaust duration?



Choppy idle and docile street car do not mix. Lift is your friend, not your enemy. You want as much lift as possible for a given duration, this is why roller cams are so much better htan flat tappet cams, they can hit higher lifts and get to those lifts MUCH quicker than flat tappets. You're not gonna get a super choppy idle in a street car, and if you do you wont enjoy driving it unless you set up the car properly to do it. Gears, conver, etc. The xe268 is probably about as choppy as you can get if you want to be lazy about it.

But you have Vortec heads, which dont do great above .500 lift. One of the problems with these heads. And the stock retainers smack teh valve guides at around .460 lift. So you need to address that too.