I know some people are probably sick of these posts, but help a brotha out!

What cam would you guys recommend for a 1986 305 TPI? I have the following mods: Coan 3500 stall, 4.10 gears, no emissions, air foil, K&N, and a 160 thermostat. I'm not a 100% sure, but didn't they do something a little different with the stock cam in 1986? Anyway, I will be leaving the heads alone, but will be putting an afpr on. I would like to go as aggressive as I could with leaving the stock heads alone. I'm not worried about spending the money on getting a decent cam, so I'm open to all ideas as long as I can leave the stock heads alone. Let me know what you guys think and also what kind of performance gains one could expect with the cam. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t 1986 the worst year for the TPI Camaro? Thanks for your help guys!

 

86 was the last year for flat tappet cams, so you'll be looking for a flat tappet style when you replace/upgrade. It was also the year they began installing the "peanut cam" in TPI motors. It was basically the same cam as the low-output LG4 carbureted 305s got (later 87-up roller peanut cams still had very similar specs but were rollers instead of flat tappets). In short, just about anything would be better than what you've got now.

Not sure what upgrades you plan on doing to your heads with respect to clearance for high lift cams, stronger springs and such, but Comp Cams makes a line of EFI cams in their Xtreme Energy flat tappet cam line. They're very similar to the typical XE cams you often hear about but they're ground on wider 112-114* lobe separations to make them more computer friendly. Here are some:

http://www.compcams.com/Technical/Se...umber=12-256-4

http://www.compcams.com/Technical/Se...umber=12-262-4

Either of those cams could work with a set of Comp 981 springs which would be drop-in replacements for your stock ones.

It goes without saying that even the smaller cam listed above you should strongly consider custom chip tuning to match it. Even though it's not really a "big" cam it does have almost THIRTY (30!!!) degrees more duration than your "peanut cam"! It's not that it's a big cam, it's just that your peanut cam is so crazy small.

 

crazy stall and rearend gears for a tpi modded or not. thing must launch like a mother with those.

 

Damon, thank you very much for that information. I will be checking out those cams and will probably pull the trigger on one of those Comp Cams and will also consider some different springs, thanks again!

Yeah the motor hardly has enough power to stall my car up to 2200 RPM and the 4.10 gear keeps the TPI out of it's power curve most of the time, so I think I'll be stepping down to a 3.73.