Waste Of Time-Cam W/O Heads
 

Will a cam upgrade benefit performance with out replacing the heads? My bolt ons will be: ARH LT's, UD pulley, LS6 Intake, Meziere, 85mm TB, MAF, Truck coil packs, 145a alt, Crs1313, lid, and tune. My goal is 400RWHP.

it will but to get the best results get a set of good flowing heads and get the cam spec'd out for all the mods you have :) you will regret it if u dont get heads

If your goal is only 400whp then a cam alone will accomplish that. You wont regret not doing heads because you can always throw a set of heads on later. You WILL most likely regret if you get a cam that is small.

Its not a waste of time adding a cam without heads. Naturally the more you do the more power you make but one of the 230s cams will put you where you want to be or close to it. I wouldn't mess with a 85mm throttle body, save some money and port your stocker and I wouldn't mess with the waterpump either. Its a lot of money for very little gain. I'd put that money aside for heads later on.

400 can be done with a good cam, but you gotta pull the heads to swap it,,,,sooo. But if budget is an issue a cam will get ya to 400.

Depends what can yOu want. If you do something normal for the street like a 222-226 and won't bleed off too much compression your fine with cam only. Once you start going over 230 and/or single patterns blowin all your compression out the motor it'll run like dog shit idle and the rpm you use on the street. I hate to give general statements like this but You really should bump the compression with most cams i see in the 235 range. Plus these cams push lifts to .600 and a slight port will benefit greatly

I was going to tell you to get a good conveter first but am guessing this is going on the M6 car?? Not sure where the idea came from that you have to pull the heads to change a cam but that is not true!! Head work can be done later.

Im the opposite, youll regret it if you get cam thats too big. As said, 230 is about where you start giving up street manners for high rpm power.

My cam-swap took me from 355rwhp to 410rwhp. Only other supporting mod done at the same time was an underdrive pulley.

You do NOT have to take the heads off to swap a cam.

It is generally accepted to match your cam to your heads, not the other way around. If heads are in your near future, I'd do them with the cam swap. If you just want to get to 400rwhp and leave it there for a couple years, don't bother with the heads just yet.

Some people recommend putting new lifters in when you do a new cam. While this is not 100% necessary, it is recommended. You do have to pull the heads to swap lifters.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck

Thanks for all the input so far. Ultimatly I just want to make a nice driving/handling car with some balls. Thats why I got a vert.

Here is a good thread on Heads Only. For me this seems to be a less costly option for now because I need to by a new converter w/ a cam swap. Once you start adding up all the parts for the cam swap it adds up quick and then throw in a $700 to $900 converter, well puts it out of reason for me. I know you don't need the converter but this gets you the HP you are looking for and a cam can come later. Just a thought.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...stock-cam.html

Tony

trex man.. made 421 with just my cam through a 9

no way would i ever tell someone that t rex or any other donkey cam would be a good choice, listen the big cams are great but are not a budget way of making your car fast, you will need max effort parts to make a big cam perform the way it should, 90% of people on here think the bigger the cam the more hp and faster there car will be, that couldnt be more wrong, now if you were setting up a bad ass cam only race car , had the parts and gear to push it i would say go for it, now without doing heads i would go with a lil bigger cam but you want something that has a nice power band, t rex,ms4 ect will put all you power higher in the rpm range,your low end will suck. in a street car you want more low ,mid range honest on the street how many times are you going to do 6800 pulls? your best move is to contact pat g , talk with him he will get you set up. just tell him you plan on doing heads down the road, i have a big cam in my car ms4, and honest i tell everyone to stay away from cams like that if you dont know what your getting into

If you just want to give it some more balls and keep it driver friendly I would just do something like a 224 or 228. That way you can keep your mileage and not have to do alot of other things to get a good setup. I couldn't imagine having my MS4 with 3.42s. I bet it'd feel like the starship interprise on the interstate though lol.

Hey man, take a look at the TR230/224. It's not a huge cam, and makes some badass power under the curve. Are there cams out there that make more power up high? Sure there are. I love this cam though. Awesome low-end power, and still maintain good mpg. Last time I checked I was getting 25+ on the highway cruising between 70-75. Extremely streetable cam that sounds badass with the 111LSA.

Yeah set up is everything. Figure out your goals and then get what you need to make it all work together.

The entire "don't put a cam in without good heads" theory comes from the old SBC/SBF days when cylinder heads barely flowed 150cfm out of the box. Back in those times, you couldn't utilize a camshafts benefits without opening up the heads or buying bigger ones.

A stock LS1 cylinder head flows more air than a lot of ported SBC stuff, so that theory is no longer valid.

That being said, a ton of power can be had on a stock headed engine. The key to having a nice driving car with good manners and all around power is having something spec'd out for your application. This includes weight of the car, gearing, exhaust set up, driving habits, etc. Generic camshafts backed by a large marketing campaign to appeal to the masses generally will not achieve all of those goals at once, but rather 1 or 2 of them but not the rest. Talk to a few camshaft specialists before making your choice. You'll be a lot happier.

Also, a few more quick internet debunks for you:
-Big heavy double springs are not the way to go if you don't have to
-42lb injectors are not the magical # for a 346ci engine. Way too big.
-High 230/low 240 duration cams are not good daily drivers
-Most super duper top secret lobe camshafts are typically generic Comp XE-R lobes


Good luck

If this is truly your goal then you should build for torque if you are referring to stop light (street) performance and don't have plans for a lot of track time.
What is your stall??

This is definitely a smart choice. :)

Talk to EPS, a vendor here, Geoff will get you a cam that you wont have to worry about.