L98, 7165 ECM, MAF, 083 heads, Edelbrock shorty headers.

Is there a mild cam that will be friends with the factory ECM? The previous owner slid a big cam in this engine so I need to swap it out but don't want to go back to stock and would like to take advantage of existing mods.

 

Any cam other than stock should be tuned. Tpi maf is more forgiving than sd.
Although the ecm can compensate alittle as long as stay alive memory obtained.

Do you have the cam specs of your cam that's installed now ?
Ideally for Tpi 224/230 110-112lsa. Your lift will be limited bye the work done to your heads, springs , guides cut or extended valves.

 

I found it will depend. I did a couple various heads cam motors that ran ok on stockish tune maf tables but i just had one cam only car not run at all on the stock tune. Required extensive open loop tuning. Definately not the norm but it happened

That was a mild 218/224 cam. Be prepared to have to tune your system regardless.

 

Not a clue. The Bubba who had the car before me installed a GM 355 at some point. When I bought the car it had an overheating issue so I pulled the heads and redid them but I never checked the cam, I assumed it was stock. I've been chasing some driveability issues and nothing made any sense so yesterday I pulled a valve cover and used a dial indicator to measure the lift which turned out to be .540". I plan to pull the motor and go through it so I know exactly what I've got.

 

I don't plan to go anywhere near that size with the cam I'm putting in.

 

Cam doesn't matter. Any ecu can compensate when tuned.

 

I ran a zz4 cam (208/221) in my 89 L98/083/MAF Iroc with SLP shorties. It passed emissions (back when I needed to here in NC) on the stock tune. I was in a similar situation as you, and chose the cam based on others who had good experiences running that zz4 cam on a later year MAF car. ...but as always, no guarantees, and tuning for any changes is always a good idea.

Edit - just to clarify, the car ran great, sounded good, and I picked up power with the cam but I'm not suggesting that I wasn't giving up power by running the stock tune. I'm sure I left some on the table. Knowing what I know now....I wouldn't do a cam without tuning.

 

I know what you're saying. Thanks for the input.