nothing special just wanted to get some of you guys opinions on the different cams and there characteristics.

 

Be prepared to be told to overcam your car. Most are going to tell you HOT cam and larger and to bandaid the bad idle with too wide a LSA. Look into peoples actaul results and the smaller cams like the Crane 210/224(called 227 on the b-body boards) and the GM 845 begin to look very good. I have a ZZ3 cam which is just a hair smaller than the Crane listed above and it sounds about stock, I could tune it to sound like a cam but it is a Caprice, sounding stock just makes it that much more suprizing to the competition at the track.

 

it would be easier for you to tell us what characteristics are acceptible for you. there are a lot of choices out there. simple cams like the LPE 211 cam all the way up to aggresive cams like the GM 847 are considered by most to be streetable. but what do you want?

 

I have a cc306 on a 350c.i.. I consider it to be fine for daily driving. It's tuned well, but not perfect yet (wating for my dyno day!).
I consider it to be streetable, meaning I can shift at 2000rpms (m6) and lug around in any gear, so long as I'm over, like 1200 or so.

If I would have chosen the cam (it was in a motor I bought), I would have gone a little more mild, for more midrange power. Come on, if you don't live at the track, you REALLY don't want to spin to 6500rpms, do you?

 

OK...LOBE GUY...

Here's the cams I have tried, so maybe this will help

ACCELL/LPE...211/219 (actually measures 213/219 on cam checker but hey..)
OK power with great idle of 17 inches..(on 350ci lt1) 396 was 19 inches

Ex-treme 218/224 grind with 114LS...110 ICL
Good idle..a liitle more lope then 211/219 but power dies fast after max hp. It was worth about 10 SAE RWHP over the smaller LPE/ACCELL

Hot cam....little more agressive sound but near same vacuum as 224/230. Same RWHP but held the curve until 6500 before dropping off

305 Comp cam with 114LS...110 ICL...Idle was better then 224/230 and hot cam...made same upper rpm power as 218/224 but held the peak hp the longest of any cam yet

EX-treme 224/230 grind with 112LS...108 ICL
Gained 10 rwhp over any previous cam...very good under the curve...but after peak the power drops off fast..as with previous 218/224

306 Comp cam 112LS...108 ICL
Good cam but kills lots of low end tq...vacuum was 12 inches...never dynoed this combo....

Comp magnum lobe 230/230 112LS...108 ICL...
This cam was highest vacuum and..by far the best daily driver cam...lift was .603/.603 with my 1.6 rr's ...so watch it...Made same power as GM847..15 inches of vacuum

GM847 Very good driver...1.5 inches less vacuum then 230/230 cam though..on dyno power was the same as 230/230...same tq....down low because of converter.......13.5 inches of vaccum

Cam Motion Mechanical 245/245 112LS...108 ICL lift was .608/.608 with tight lash of .016 fopr each lobe......This cam needed to be in open loop to run well..otherwise uncontrolled low RPM surge...ran good but after tuning made 5 rwhp more then the 230/230 and GM847...12 inches of vacuum at 950 base rpm

New cutom grind 238/245 111LS...108 ICL lift of .575/.575....Have not ran this cam on current combo..yet..awaiting new heads...

OK enough of this....Hand dying......hope this helps...


Jimbob

 

Oh, almost forgot there was a moral to this...

How about a 224/230 fast ramp but not ex-treme ramp....like Comp magnum lobe 224/230 on either a 112LS or if you want the most power out of it, a 110LS with 4 degrees of advance on the intake....Cam motion has good ramps to for this. This should give you the power of a old 306 grind but idle in the 14-15 inches of vacuum range(depending on LS and advance) with good low end tq..MAX hp some where in the 6200 rpm range and will hold it long....

Just ideas for you. Everybodies opinion of what's streetable is different...GOOD LUCK GRASS HOPPER.......

Jimbob

 

Well 96 once again ... Never mind

I have ran several of the cams Jimbob has listed after they were in his car but mine was a STOCK HEAD STOCK SHORT block car kicking 3,750 track weight.

I have yet to find a cam that when PROPERLY tunned was to much for the motor. Hell my 847 drives like a kitten and ripps your F-ing head off like a Tiger when pinned. My wife(a picky driver) loved driving it on our 60 mile a day commute. Our commute included as much Stop and go Seattle traffic and any. We got an average of 19 MPG tank to tank.

My FAVORTIE cam is the LPE 211. We just stuffed one in my wifes car as a matter of fact. This change shaved 7/10ths of her best previous time.

This is actually the cam Alot of guys should run but they all want to hang with LS1 cars. To do that you have to step up and in a big way. I mean damn it takes a good set of heads and healthy cam to stay with a new Z06!

Always remember there is more to meets the eye on a cam then just duration and lift The LPE cam is not a ton bigger then a Stock cam but REALLY delivers on the other end

BTW I have been shifting this stock short block to as high as 7,000 since 1999

 

Oh, yeah...forgot the two more,,,


ZZ9....212 or 213 intake with like 226 exhaust 112LS...108 ICL.....idle and ran like LPE 211/219 cam, but not as much power in my combo...like 5 hp less, so no big deal....

ZZ409...measured 224/244 with 115 LS...111 ICL.....Idled good but not as much power as similar size...vacuum was like 14 inches...the 286 base duration probably had something to do with it.....If you can stay below low 280's base duration and limit overlap...you'll have a real easy driver cam...but not the most power by any means...


Jimbob

 

TwoFast, you saying you like the LPE cam is acually agreeing with what I was saying. Sure massive cams can drive well if well tuned in the end though they often end up being no faster so why put up with lesser manners. I have a ZZ3 cam at the moment it was my first cam swap experiance with any vehicle so I wanted to stay conservative, looking back I could have gone bigger and been happy yet, that does not mean I regret it. For a comparison of the 210/224 crane vs. the 846 go here number 36 and 56 now yes the 846 was faster but look at the details of the car, most notably he shed a lot of weight plus the weather was better.

 

LT4 Hot Cam and CC305 are two good cams for an everyday driver.

 

I am using the 306, ported heads and intake,kooks headers,and y pipe, borla stock rods,crank. I just wanted to get a good feel for what most LT1 guys prefer sounds really good an nice variety of choices and preferences.

 

I had the cc305 in my car because I listened to those people who said don't put too much cam in there unless you want it to drive crappy, have no power in the low RPMs, and get crappy gas mileage.(Well, the last one is true ) However, the cc305 just wasn't fast enough so I stepped up to the cc306 and WOW! I wish I had done that from the start and saved myself a lot of money.

 

Ellis is aboslutely right, there is so much more to a cam than numbers. i would have never thought a 230/230 cam would produce the most vacuum or drive the best like Jimbob said.

i too love both the ZZ9 and LPE 211 cams. they are very decepetive cams. match the ZZ9 to good flowing heads like ported LT4s and your looking at tq and hp peaks at or over 6k rpms.