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hey guys I'm having a hard Ike finding what cam would bet suit my needs. I have a 79 z28 camaro, 4 speed, 3.73 rear. As funds clear up, it will be a 6 speed, but for that's down the road. I'm swapping in an 04 5.3 out of a suburban or tahoe. I'm looking for a cam that will give me good performance. But still be a big cam to have a real choppy idle to it. This car is being built to be a weekend bruiser, see the track a few times. Bust mostly to beat around light to light. The 5.3 will be carbureted, long tubes, full exhaust. Possibly getting into some nitrous, I'm not too sure yet. Any input would greatly be appreciated
Comp makes plenty of cams for LS based motors.. but i would highly recommend you stick with a cam motion core. They cam doctor their cams before sending out and many have found them to be very accurate to spec, which from my searching isn't always the case for some other grinds.
They also do custom grinds.. You could check with Kipp or a cam motion rep, or you could also check with martin smallwood. He specced mine and used a cam motion core. He hit my driveability and HP goals perfectly..
A 5.3 is a bit smaller than the 5.7 so smaller cams will chop slightly more then they would in our LS1s, that being said to figure out how much a cam will chop you need to understand what causes it, it's valve overlap. Add the intake and exhaust durations at .050 and subtract that by the product of 2×LSA. The higher the number the more chop and the poorer idle quality. Yes the number can be negative. Any cam with 0 overlap at .050 will sound the same regardless of the cam specs, (look up 224/224 112 ls1 cam on YouTube) 1 or -1 will sound similar. At about 4 or -4 you start to get a noticable difference. Its all about finding that balance. More narrow LSA will cause more overlap, power will be much more "peakier" and fall off sooner and changes valve events. Remember dude, dont sacrifice performance for sound, why make a lot of noise and have a crappy combination that runs poorly you know? Also, adding a cutouts will give you more chop when open as opposed to a full exhaust with a muffler. 0 degrees at .050 will sound good and be street friendly. 8 degrees might not be...
We have our new high lift hot cam available and its made some pretty good power and is specd pretty good for either a carb or fuel inj.
$515 for cam and springs or $575 for cam springs and prs.
Made 385/362 on a mild ls1 build and with your setup honestly id see it making the same
Video
https://youtu.be/wSjWeEuRBhc
Dyno graph
Its not the biggest baddest max effort cam out there, but it is quiet under the hood as well.
Link to get it
http://www.ws6project.com/user_stor/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=235_426_73_765&products_id= 8532
In comments put high lift hot cam and we will get you taken care of!
06-01-2017, 12:15 PM
Cam help 
