New here, like to here thoughts on a cam.

Wow, I am I glad to find an active Mopar forum!

I'm the in process of bringing my street/strip 440 powered 76 Volare back to life after a long sleep. I've got two motors, the first is my spare, a blueprinted .060 over TRW motor, 9.5 CR 456 heads pocket ported with the templates and port matched, the cam is Mopars .557 lift mechanical. The thing made 520hp and 543trq good enough for 11.50s in the Plymouth.

The next is a .060 over 4.15 stroke that I built in 91 with a Mopar crank I waited a year for, no kit, light weight custom pistons floating pins etc.. The heads are 915s that have had the same porting as the 456s and the cam I had used was a Comp .650 lift, 290 duration @ .050 lift. This combo pulled hard to 7000 and was good for 6.70 1/8th mile and 1.43 60 foot times.
As tempting as all the new parts available now are I've decided to just freshen up this combination with one change, the cam. In an effort to lower the rpm range I'm thinking about taking 15 degrees out @ .50 lift and I happen to have this Mopar cam.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/dcc-4349268ae/overview/make/dodge

So my question is has anyone used it in the past, and had it on a dyno, I'm interested in the power curves, like, dislikes etc..
Whatever cam I use it will be a flat tappet.

Ihanks for any input,

Tom

I'm sure some of the guys will help you out... but I
wanted to say.. welcome

The .620 cam will run out of air at 5000 rpm or so with 500 cubic inches to feed. You need a lot of lift to feed 500 inches with cast iron heads. I'm not sure what the Super Stock boys run but I bet it is .750 or .800 lift and they are only feeding 440 cubes.

The easiest way to check this stuff is to buy a copy of PipeMax and plug your numbers in. PipeMax will calculate all of the airflow requirements and tell you how much lift you need given the rpm, cubic inches and valve size.

I'm not saying the .620 cam won't run great, but you'll be leaving a lot of power on the table with that small of a cam. On the flip side, you'll have plenty of torque in the 3500 to 5000 range so if you gear the car right it will pull hard down the track.

My intention is to keep the thing under 6600rpm, I'm more interested in making this old bullet survive than go a tenth or two faster. This motor will go on the dyno after it's done, the one thing I'm concerned with is the curves being to early. I can always use the Conp cam if I don't like the numbers.

I tend to sand bag when bracket racing by a tenth or so, after all how fast is a old Volare anyhow?

500 cubes with cast iron heads will have a torque peak around 4100 rpm. Max hp will be 1000 to 1500 rpm after that depending on cam and intake and so on. If you put it on the dyno that is what you'll most likely see. The .620 cam will run out of air around 5000 rpm as I said before so peak power will be somewhere around 5000 or maybe a bit higher. I doubt you'll need to shift it much past 5500 rpm.

I haven't seen anyone use it in a long time, but what about the old "Mini-Express" .654 mushroom-lifter cam? It has a pretty decent rate-of-lift without the cost of a full roller setup. You can still find them new in the box occasionally...

With that low an rpm, maybe a hydraulic roller would be a good choice. Maximum torque with a lowered usable rpm range. Low maintenance, not as expensive as a solid roller setup.

Cool!! Another Iawegian on board! What track do you plan on running?

Well I'm 45 miles from Cedar Falls, 85 from Humboldt. I like them both but I favor Humboldt for reasons unknown.

Since you have the cam already, why not stick it in, shift it at 5500 and see how it goes. That might be pretty close to what it will want, depending on the rest of the parts. These big motors with such poor flowing heads are stump pullers, for sure and don't need to be revved very high for best results