Has anyone noticed the op is gone? Lol I think he got a little miffed about another thread he made where he didnt agree with what we were saying....

Anyway I agree a big cam can be complimented by compression runner volume etc. However to say a ron jeremy cam will drive like a 228r is a blanket statement. Afetr a certain point you simply cant do anything to make the cam drive better. Its just physics a cam with 11 degrees of overlap will not drive like one with 4. Sure a good tuner will make the larger one drive "ok" but then again that same tuner could make the smaller one purr. That goes for a SD tune or regular tune.

In the common world people usually just want the biggest cam they can fit for a variety of reasons which I agree with tusky, would get its *** kicked all the way down the block by a smaller cam with a well thought out setup, even on stock heads. Now add heads with compression and some flow velocity to both setups and the big cam is obviously going to win all around. However thats not how 99% of people think they just want the biggest cam for the biggest sound and not touch heads. Which is the reason so many cam setups run like ***** both driveability wise and performance wise

 

Actually, that's not true at all. While the tune plays an important role in making the cam behave, you can't tune out overlap. It's just not possible. You can increase your vacuum at idle with a big cam by playing with the timing advance, but there's a limit for what you can achieve. Same goes for streetability. A big cam simply cannot operate efficiently in low RPM situations because of the overlap.

However, with enough gear and compression, you can make it behave well enough. This goes back to the combo. Can you lug a 240 duration cam at 1200 RPM? You can hold the RPM there. Try to accelerate in gear with part throttle from there, and it'll buck. No amount of tuning will fix it. The answer then is to put more gear in to get RPMs up to 1500 or 1600 at that speed to make it pull easier. Or drop the gear down and get the revs up to accelerate. We know in traffic, you can't always do that nor do you want to, so there is some compromise, especially if you don't optimize the combo.

 

Exactly what I said lol you cant "tune" physics. Overlap makes power unfortunatley it also makes the motor inefficient at low rpm causing the issues.

The good news is though on most stock like setups a small cam will be within 10hp or so of a larger one. The gap only widens when you add heads, compression etc but by that point you probably really dont care how it drives

 

Great posts.... I rather be in rush hour bumper to bumper traffic with a 224 cam than a 240 cam due to the "bucking" which I don't care for at all. Just like Jake said your gear can help that out but who wants to run a 4.30 gear on the street in a REAL STREET CAR?......

 

There are quite a few people on here who run 4.30 or higher gears on their street car with no issues/problems at all. Like I've said time and time again, a good tuner can take care of all that bucking and surging that's common with a shitty tune and big cam. I'm sure there are plenty on here that can attest to that, and can also attest to having a 224 size cam buck, surge, and be annoying due to a bad tune.

 

No problems for them*
Not everyone wants to have a 4.30 rear on a car that sees a lot of highway and a lot of stop and go traffic with a cam that wastes a gallon of gas sitting at a stop light. Been there and done that, I'd rather have the small cam with the good heads and run low 11's all day long with my AC on and change my valvesprings every 30k miles.

 

Me too!! Not to mention more gear means more rpm on the higway which means you'll be loving the gas pump a little bit more LOL

 

I love all these posts lol.

So where do the 224r cams start to "buck" at? What gear, speed, rpm?

I start to run into trouble around 1400 in 4th gear (apx 35 mph) with 3.90s.

 

My cam in my sig never bucks lol i can lug it along at 1000 in 6th if i want or 1200 in 2nd 3rd 4th etc lol.

4 degrees is really the cutoff for true "almost stock" driveability
from there up till 8 is pretty good and tolerable but wont be perfect.
anything over 8 is pushing the limit on a DD type car.

you can get a good tune which will minimize all the effects but again as I said you cant tue physics. a 12 degree overlap cam will not drive like a 4 degree one with the same tuner doing both

 

It's not that bad daily driving my car. There is an art to driving it lol. The one thing I wasn't expecting was the gas mileage. With the FIPK set up I was getting just over 11 mpg. Haven't driven it enough with the lid and chrs1313, but from what I've read it should increase. I think I get about 150 miles out of a tank...?

 

A cam with 20 degrees of overlap is never going to drive like stock. It's just not. No amount of tuning can help. The cam simply doesn't like it. In fact, when you look at a stock VE table and one tuned with a bigass cam, it looks like you fall off a cliff under 1600 RPM. That's how much fuel you have to pull to lean it out.

If you're running an LS2/3 PCM, they can help more. The stupid IAC and slow *** LS1 PCMs certainly don't help.

 

Yeah, I know, but the point I was trying to make is that a good tune can make a world of difference. The person driving the car matters too. Some guys can drive anything and consider it streetable, while others are more picky about street manners, or lack of.

 

Thanks to all those who recently posted that brought a little "logic" and keeping it real back in this thread.....LOL

While you can tune a 240 ish cam in a 346 to run "OK" it will never.....and I mean never, drive like a cam just 10 degrees smaller.

You have essentially traded off 90% of your drivalbility and low RPM torque (forget about fuel economy), to slightly enhance the 5 to 7K portion of your power band.

The largest problem is you give up a lot to gain a little and it's a point of quickly diminishing returns after the 230 range (on a 346 type combination).

The C5 that just made almost 490 RWHP with my reworked 215's and a 227 cam.....that car makes huge power and drives almost as good as stock.....almost....but easily something you could daily without a doubt. Would 13 more degrees of cam have added to the power some and cleared 500.....sure.....but not by alot. Point is the extra 15-20 ponies lets say would have compromised ALL the overall goodness of the current combination. Throttle response notably softer.....tip in throttle on the freeway all but annihilated.....fuel economy in the toilet by probably 4-5 MPG.....surging more abundant down low....and low midrange power where you kind of squirt around on the street would have been reduced considerably.

Sure....Jacks car might have made 505 - 510 RWHP with the exact same combination and a much larger cam (and been great for his status as an Internet hero! ), but he would be miserable in comparison living with that trade off every day....especially if he had the chance to enjoy the current version of his hot rod which does everything well and would still wax 95% of similar cars he might roll up against.

-Tony

PS.....And where is the OP.....got a chuckle for the poster who noted him gone.....LOL

 

I like what Jake said in this thread.

If I may quote:

 

So I tend to see often that a 22x cam (stock heads) will drag a 24x cam (stock heads) down the track. When is this not the case? Does the 22x cam still win when you do heads to both?

After seeing a post of Tony's heads getting cnc'ed, I've made up my mind to save up for his heads. I really think if I get heads through him as well as port match my fast 92 I'll get the most out of my set up.

 

Not really lol a lot goes into a combo like that. If you have stock heads and maybe just plan on porting them then I would keep a small cam especially if you drive the car a lot asa DD and want the most useable power. Sure the larger cam will make a few more ponies up top but not enough to be worth it.

When you go to aftermarket heads or heavily ported ones that all changes. The beauty of aftermarket castings is that the chamber is changed so that you can get more compression, more PTV and still have a small runner to maintain velocity but get a lot of airflow at low lift-mid lift. These are things that even some of the best ported castings cant offer although some come close.

When this happens it all changes. the compression and velocity will get rid of that sluggish feeling of the larger cam. It still wont be as snappy as the smaller one but it begins to be where the bigger cam will not sacrifice much at all down low but shine up top. So here the big cam destroys the smaller one, again there is a point of diminishing returns with going up in cam size. However the heads still wont fix the bucking or surging, they just make it more responsive. Hope that helps lol

 

A big cam setup correctly will take a smaller cam at the track. The street is anyone's guess.

 

I still rather have a smaller cam (AWESOME HEADS) car that run 11 flat than have a big cam car with factory 241 heads that runs 11 seconds flat.

 

Thanks for all the explanations guys. Maybe I'd feel better if I was able to line um up with one of you guys to see how far off we are lol

 

What heads would you pair with the Hellion if you had $3000 to spend?