Worth the money for a new cam?
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 30
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From: Norway, Europe
Worth the money for a new cam? I have a LM7 engine from a '04 Express van going into my Caprice, coupled with a stock 4L60E from a Camaro.
Would it be of any benefit to drop in another cam, or will I get all the power way up there and sacrifice fuel economy?
Driveability and fuel economy is the most important for me - but a little more pull is definitely not wrong either..
Would it be of any benefit to drop in another cam, or will I get all the power way up there and sacrifice fuel economy?
Driveability and fuel economy is the most important for me - but a little more pull is definitely not wrong either..
something in the 22x/22x on a 114-7 lsa would definitely provide that little more pull you are looking for and still allow you to maintain drive-ability and fuel economy. If u dont want to do any tuning than you can always run an ls6 or ls9 cam which is pretty much biggest stock cam u can get, any bigger and the engine ecu really needs to be tuned anyway to have the best and biggest gains from swapping cams. plus if u go bigger than ls6/9 u really need to upgrade the valvetrain to handle the extra lift and pressure of bigger lobes. It all depends on your budget/knowledge and or plans for the car. A heavy caprice could def use the extra pull of an aftermarket cam, you would not be let down by throwing one in there and if money is tight, other members are always selling kits and cams in the for sale section, sometimes even brand new for good prices. Nothing wrong with a used cam so long as the lobes are smooth and not nicked or scored, same with pushrods. Id do some reading in the dyno section to see numbers and videos of other setups that look similar to what you want and also the ls1 internal section has tons of good info about cams and sizes and what is working good/bad for other people. Otherwise get a hold of one of the vendors that you comfortable with; a custom cam is always gong to be the most beneficial as it fits your particular build the best obviously but off the shelf cams have been proven all the time to work well and usually cost less. A 220/224 size cam along with a set of long tube headers would really wake that lm7 right up. 
