Yo Nick

I think I see what you’re looking for and not getting here, and I understand why some people are chafing at your persistence.

I’m a child in the engine building hobby compared to some of the pros you’re getting advise from but I have tried 15 or 20 cams in different engines, mostly harleys and small block mopars. So I’m going to tell you what I know about operating ranges, horsepower, and street driving. I’ll try to keep it short.

Cams have personality. Some are smooth from the bottom up, some have a rough spot that can’t be tuned out, some run out of steam early, some need to be revved to get to the power, and some even have a magic sweet spot where the power comes in all of the sudden.

I’ll give you my experiences with some cams in my stickshift 408 stroker smallblock-

With Unported eddy heads: comp extreme high lift .525 hydraulic- great torque, good hp to 5500, came on violently at 2200. Had to either take off hard at 2500 or feather the clutch or else it was a jerky ride past 2200. A stall converter in an auto would have probably fixed that.

Same heads, mopar 557 solid cam: soft on the bottom- needed more gas to take off. Still probably comparable to a stock 318 or 273 off idle- a little choppy but smooth power delivery. Cam specs looked like it’d rev and rev and get gobs of power upstairs but the unported heads with the stroker made power drop off basically after 5k. Still super fun to drive and respectably fast on the street but far from well matched or maxumum power for the operating range- didn’t rev that high and weak off idle. Easy to drive, sounded great, & lots of fun though.

Eddy Heads ported @ shady dell, custom bullet soild cam spec’d by Ryan to match the potential of his heads: stronger all over the place. Only problem was that now there was SPECTACULAR power in the upper rpm range which with my OD 4spd meant that 1st was over in 20 feet and spinning tires, then 2nd gear didn’t tap into that power until 60-70mph. Going sideways around a lonely corner at 35mph is super fun but going sideways because you mashed it on the highway is terrifying! It was for sure a stoplight terror and had the ‘probably 500 crank hp’ bragging rights, but was actually less fun to drive to work or cruise around sometimes. I did have a lot of fun but it was more night time mustang hunting (just stoplight shannanagans not crazy all out streetracing).

Now I’m building a 512 for a 3000lb pickup with 3.21 gears. I’m trying out a comp .507 lift with a split duration in the 240°s. I’m trying to be like the little brother to Andy F’s motor- maybe 80% of his power and 50% of his spending. Time will tell.

Did that help with the operating range thing? A real racer will just put in a converter that constantly accesses the sweet spot for max power but that would be terrible on the street. A true street car would pull smooth and hard off idle but would be unimpressive over 4000. It’s not as cut and dry as operating range numbers- cams will have personality and it will have a lot to do with especially your heads and the whole package in general.

For what you want to do I’d pick something that has a cool sounding idle and I wouldn’t try to keep making power past 5500. A 6000 redline will keep the valvetrain parts affordable and I usually shift around 4k or lower on the street unless I’m really enjoying myself or keeping it revved up in 2nd and playing around in that 3500-5k area through twisties.

Ok I’m done my coffee, time to get to work. Hope this helped and listen to the suggestions above most were made by people much smartener than me