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In the middle of gathering parts to finish up the 404 build for the 65 chevy nova and need help picking a medium size cam. First off this is not a max HP build, this is cruiser and will be built to do power tour/ drag week type events and weekend cruiser.
little run down on the car and parts so far.
65 nova raceweight 2850-2900
vintage air
FLT lvl 5 4l60e
Yank SS4000
1 7/8 long tubes
3" x pipe magnaflow and tail pipes
8.5 big 10 bolt 3.42 gears
235/6015 et.street radials
Caltrac bars
Smith racecraft strut front end.
Ls2 404 ci
Wiseco flat tops -3cc SCR should be 11.73
K1 rods
K1 crank
1041 felpro head gasket quench .035
Tfs 235, 66cc
fast 102 intake
holley terminator max
asp 25%
ls7 lifters
I'm looking at milder cams like these
Cam 1......238/242 112 .595/595 IVC @ 49
cam 2.......240/244 112 .608/.595. IVC @ 50
dont really see the need to open the valve over .600 as the trickflow heads flow great and I'd like to keep the valve train noise down and the life reasonable long.
DCR should be in the 8.7-8.8 range if my calculations are correct. This thing needs to run on 91-93 octane.
if anyone seems to think a different cam might be better please feel free to explain what and why.
I would definitely ditch the ls7 lifters they cant handle cams like youre looking at, they also wouldn't be able to handle the correct springs for your application either.
Duration aside you would be leaving some power on the table using those heads and that amount of lift. If youre running stock rockers they will operate safely up to .630 lift with a trunion upgrade. For example I run TFS 220s on my 346 with a custom cam specd by cam motion that has .629 lift on the intake and .618 on the exhaust.
With that converter and curb weight i wouldn't be afraid to go bigger with the cam, i would suggest more gear though if you do. The gears will make up for the decrease in low end torque and off the line performance.
I would definitely ditch the ls7 lifters they cant handle cams like youre looking at, they also wouldn't be able to handle the correct springs for your application either.
Duration aside you would be leaving some power on the table using those heads and that amount of lift. If youre running stock rockers they will operate safely up to .630 lift with a trunion upgrade. For example I run TFS 220s on my 346 with a custom cam specd by cam motion that has .629 lift on the intake and .618 on the exhaust.
With that converter and curb weight i wouldn't be afraid to go bigger with the cam, i would suggest more gear though if you do. The gears will make up for the decrease in low end torque and off the line performance.
I've kinda been thinking of swapping to johnson 2110s just for peace of mind.
I know I could go alot larger on the cam, but I'm thinking there is a point where you dont gain much by going larger compared to the drivability issues that come along with it.
I've kinda been thinking of swapping to johnson 2110s just for peace of mind.
I know I could go alot larger on the cam, but I'm thinking there is a point where you dont gain much by going larger compared to the drivability issues that come along with it.
The 2110 Johnson's are what I run and my valvetrain is not loud, it sounds healthy.
If you haven't already i would call around to different vendors and have them spec you some options from small to big, i would ask about the pros and cons as far as gains and losses. When i had mine specd by cam motion the guy i talked to was very helpful. For what its worth the cam in my 346 is a 233/241, if it were an auto id go a bit larger due to the fact with the right converter the shift extension would keep the rpms higher on the shifts compared to my t56. With 60 more cubes i find the specs you posted to be pretty conservative.
as far as drivability any tuner worth their weight in salt should be able to make it drive and idle nice. The biggest issue ive seen from retuning vehicles is idle is usually completely untouched and the previous tuners attitude as to why it runs like **** is the cams to big or the intake/throttle body sucks which leads people to believe these things are true. when i tune a vehicle i spend way more time doing part throttle tuning to get the fueling and timing right, its not hard just time consuming. Wide open is the easiest and quickest part of tuning in my opinion but it needs to be done last. What ive always found toughest and most time consuming is tuning idle with the fast 102 setup, The throttle bodies are the issue here which require adjusting many tables. Anyways find a tuner willing to put in the time and effort no matter what you do for a cam or buy the software and do it yourself.
10-04-2020, 02:39 PM
404ci street car cam selection 
