bs42

New to all of this and I'm picking up a 99 trans am with thunder racing cam package patriot gold springs, retainers, locks, shims, seals, 214/230 .601/.578 117 lsa, and comp cams 5/16" pushrods 7.400" does anyone have any input on this cam other then its small. What is it capable of? All I can find on it is that its basically a stock replacement cam.

Bspeck82

First one must know what heads you purchased and what they flow. Then we choose a cam. Yes that cam will be very mild. Like a hotcam. There are better options imo. I'd take a low 220 intake duration and a much tighter Lsa. Maybe around a 109ICL and high 220 exh. Under .600 lift for stock heads

bs42

The cam is already in the car with stock heads. Has ls2 timing chain, high flow oil pump, lid, and bbk intake manifold with matching throttle body. Also has a cheap set of long tube hearers, y-pipe, gmmg catback.

stockA4

That's a great cam, old school thunder grind.

Bspeck82

If your looking for a pure fun street car, Id say go for it. Id personally go a little bit bigger, (22X/22X ~113+4? <.600") Regardless, Your cam will have good street manners. Id put a bit more converter in it, throw in a 2800 or a 3200 (MAX) and cooling for tranny. Replace rear main gasket since your there anyways. Good tires and a tune, (careful with that 10 bolt and DS) and other than the tranny (which may never give you troubles) you will be good to go. As far as what its capable of, we could only make educated assumption. It should be torquey for sure but its fairly mild, wont make impressive dyno numbers (as if it matters) or impressive quarter mile times, but for a street car it will be plenty to take on the newer 5.0s and Camaros. Probably beat them easily. Could even get a set of 799s on ebay for 600 bucks completely rebuilt, swap springs over, coil pack mounts, gaskets, bolts, valve covers, bolts and grommets, (GM has a Head rebuild kit, summit or jegs) might run you ~$750 for more compression and more bottom end - mid range torque. Or if your okay without a car for an undefined amount of time, send what's on them out for porting to AI or someone reputable.

Edit: You have 99 Heads, you can reuse center bolt valve covers, bolts and grommets.

bs42

It does already have a rebuilt auto trans with shift kit, transmission cooler, and 3000 stall converter. Also been tuned by some random guy using hptuner.

Darth_V8r

iTrader: (4)

That cam is very similar to the LS7 cam. It should rev nicely without falling on its face. It won't have the torque curve if some bigger cams, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It would benefit from a compression bump like any aftermarket cam

bs42

I picked it up yesterday the guy I got it from said it was running rich and could probably use a tune. It was a 3 hour drive home and it did good. He told me he had it on the track a handful of times and the best he ever ran was a 7.9xx in the 1/8 mile.

A.R. Shale Targa

iTrader: (2)

With GOOD heads that cam can be a real sleeper. Steve from Monster had a 218/230 @116 ls with TSP 5.3 heads in his M6 C5 and 4.10 gears IIRC it made 422 rwhp and hit 10.9s in the quarter.
Your overall combo is decent. As others have stated, improve your heads, mill for more compression and retune. that car will be plenty stout on most streets

bs42

What heads do you recommend with this cam? I see 241 heads for sale in my area fairly often.

Tuskyz28

243/799 heads would be a upgrade over
241 heads. The reason you see 241 heads for sale all the time is because they don't flow well from the factory. Head decision kind comes down on how much money you want to spend on them.

A.R. Shale Targa

iTrader: (2)

AI has a pretty neat CNC program and HC chamber option for 241 castings that can really bridge the gap with 243/799 stuff