Which should hit the scrap pile first. The stock heads OR cam?
(stock intake is long gone, so don't even fret)

-facts
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-oral arguments
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The cam! I have seen a 70s junkyard 350 make 320 hp with stock cast iron L98 heads, a comp XE268 cam, a 4bbl carb and headers.

 

IMHO, they both need to go together and be replaced with a matched set.

 

Agreed BUT, the question is one or the other. If a guy only had money to do ONE of them.

 

In that case, neither. Either one without the other is a total and complete waste of money.

 

Get rid of the heads

 

Picking one I'd pick Cam. At the stock engine level heads or cam will give similar power, but the Cam will give you so much more in ancillary.

 

Cam barely has a heartbeat. People talk so bad about the "peanut cam" on here well all of them including the L98 cam are "peanut cams " if you really want to look at it. Something like a 268 cam. 1.6RR, and ofcourse upgraded valve springs would make decent power with those heads.

 

I agree. since the heads won't take more than .460 lift why change the cam?
You can't use any cam the would help except an LT1 cam.

 

I did a cam only tpi L98 stock head deal and made less hp than full bolt ons L98 with stealth ram. Granted stock tpi held it back alot but if you already have intake mods, a great set of heads will make much better gains even with small cam.

 

The intake itself changes everything.

Stock L98 with cam or with heads will both be pretty even.

BUT with a HSR style intake the heads now become a hinderance to the cam but the cam isn't to the heads.

I don't know what intake he has.

 

Me?

 

I didn't know what intake it (you) has (have).

 

I just have a hard time buying it, that it would make significant power with stock heads unless cam gets very large...almost like how super stockers work. You'd have a very rough running car with aggressive lobes and wear out the valvetrain. Plus you would need heads machined for screw in studs and clearanced for lift. You cant just cam it and run with simple valvespring swap imo. You'd have to get heads refreshed. Wasted money imo on stock heads. You'll have 500$ stock port heads that may support 350-375 hp with a big cam. You'll have 850-900$ in cam only stock head

Now if you did heads only and 1.6 rocker on a L98 cam, with good intake it could be 40-50 hp over stock heads and that money is well invested because now you just save up for a new 300$ cam and 150$ ls lifters down the road. Heads already have all the work and springs done

 

Silly question, probably, but would slapping 1.6 ratio rockers on a stock cam/head L98 be worth doing if the rockers are super cheap/free and was already doing valve cover gaskets?

 

I saw a minor gain with 1.6's on my bolt on L98. Close to .1 in quarter but dyno said around 8 hp but was running lean