The car isn't a daily driver. The car has 55,000 miles on it. You want a big cam.

You can't afford to do heads.

You think you'll be able to afford a new block/engine in a year or two.

You can afford gears.

A few questions before commenting:

What's your budget for this project?

Have you ever had a car with a big cam?

Are emissions an issue where you are located?

Are you going to do tuning?

What if your other car/truck/motorcycle/whatever breaks and you are forced to use the T/A as a daily driver for six months? Can you deal with that?

If you can't afford heads now what makes you think you'll be able to afford a new engine in a year or two?

My .02 on this.

Your car is a 99 just like mine. These earlier LS1's do not have the best rod bolts. The 01+ cars got a better rod bolt. The older rod bolts are not as strong as the new ones. Big cams to get big gains like lot's of rpm. You'll be spinning to 6,800 rpms probably. A lot of people have done it and gotten away with it...for a while...sometimes for a very long time with an engine with the earlier rod bolt. For my car, I keep the rpm down and shift around 6,300 rpm. That's a very safe area for the 99 rod bolt. I'd happily go to 6,500 rpm on the early rod bolt but I don't want anything to do with a lot of time at 6,800. My heads and cam car has seen a fair amount of action and has 93,000 miles on it. It's had heads and cam for over 60,000 miles and about four years.

My car was not intended to be a daily driver but it was built to be able to be a daily driver if it ever had to be. We have several cars but my wife wrecked hers and my daily driver had a mishap. The heads and cam T/A ended up being the daily driver for almost two years. It wasn't a problem because, the car was set up to deal with that issue if it happened. Just something to consider when saying you want a BIG CAM and don't care about the car being a capable daily driver. It's your choice of course.

I'd wait if I were you and save up and get a good set of heads and do heads and cam. I'd use the smallest cam I could to make the most power with the heads I had. Match the cam to the needs of the cylinder heads. I think most applications are best suited with 224 to ~230 sized cams for 346 cubed LS1's.

If a nasty sounding car is what your after, just drop the idle speed and run a loudmouth/cut out with a decent sized cam.

Of course if you want a big cam, for what ever reason that's cool just make sure you've consider all the potential issues.

If you must have the BIG CAM, call Thunder Racing, explain what you want and ask for their suggestion. They are very good at cam selection. A lot of the other vendors >>>> are well worth talking to and getting their advice. It's a big purchase, take your time. Talk to people who know what they are doing then make your decision.

Good Luck and Best Wishes with your project.

 

How "streetable" a car is is completely up to you. I've driven about 3 yrs on a TRex, 4500 stall, and 4.10s. My brother drove the car from Chicago to San Diego last year, and I just got back last week from driving it back. The only thing that even slightly bothers me about my car's road manners is the lack of a front swaybar. I drive this car almost every single day when the weather's nice around here, and I don't have a single complaint about the setup. Get the biggest cam you can, and enjoy all the smiles and thumbs-up you get from everyone else. (by the way, if you check out Thunder Racing's website they note next to the TRex cam that it "responds well to nitrous") just my $.02

 

Oh, and on Thunder Racing's site, check out the white T/A with the Trex in it. It's the fastest cam-only LS1 in the country.

 

It is also less than 3000lbs race trim, has all the other bolt ons and supporting mods. Just so you're aware that if you put this cam in without supporting it it will not be the fastest (more like a dog).

 

i daily drive my ms4 and love it..... but hate drive throughs haha...

 

Ok I've been busy at work so I haven't been able to reply. Predator did you see my ?s about the suggestions you made? Black bird, my budget is not a set amount I have been slowly buying parts for this. I have the oil pump, timing chain, underdrive pulley, crane tool and pulley tool. I am trying to get things to gather and am not going to wait for heads. The only thing left to buy is the cam and a tune. I have been going back and forth with med large to big on this for a while. The only thing that is on my mind right now is do I want to spin it over 6600 for a few more ponies. I am thinking it is probably not a good idea. So here is the latest idea. I would like to get a little more info on the cams predator suggested but am a little worried about a cam I don't know much about. So not that anything is decided yet but I have been looking at the TSP 233/239 it looks big enough and doesn’t need to be spun out of control. What do you think? Will it also have a good amount of torque?

 

What would be the benefit of this cam over a Torquer V3? In a heads/cam/bolt-on A4? Same intake lobe, more exhaust, and a 112 instead of 111? Does the Torquer 3 have advance in it? The description doesnt say.
Just wondering what your line of thought was on that one.

 

They will be very comparable.
The extra split on the exhaust will add more overlap so it should make more power.
If you look at it carefully you'll notice it is like a G5X2 on steroids (with LSK intake lobe). We all know LGM cams perform
Sometimes we just teak or fine tune what is proven

 

ABQ99TA,

The cam Predator mentioned basically, a G5X2 with the LSK lobe, is probably a very good cam to look at. The very aggressive fast ramp will make the cam "act" a few degrees smaller. As long as the rpm required is ok and you ok with keeping fresh valve springs in the car, that sounds like the sort of cam your looking for.

Before commiting to the cam, it might be worth finding out what the valve spring life span is with a good bit of use. I'd guess you'd want to pull a spring and check it's pressure around 10,000 miles to see how they hold up. Probably would want to do springs ~15,000 miles to be safe. Maybe some one can chime in on how often LSK lobes like a new springs.

BTW - I'm thinking about using the LSK lobe for my next project.

 

Thanks for all your info. I probably won't buy the cam for 3-4 weeks, so I will think it over and probably post a few more questions.