Comp xe295hl in a 505

Hey guys - I'm considering a cam change for my 505 street engine in my Challenger. Currently it has stock stealth heads and Comp xe284 cam. Basically a 240@.050 and .507, 110lsa hydraulic ft. I was looking at the Comp xe295hl, also hyd ft with 251@.050 and .565 lift. I'm also planning CNC porting or trick flows. Seems like substantial enough potential gain to make it worth the work, but any opinions to share? I may just CNC the heads and add 1.6 rockers for the easiest swap. Or I may go all out and add hyd roller... It's a street car with a 4 speed and 3.55's. Might go down the strip now and then, but I enjoy making them faster regardless. Thanks

How do you like the engine with the existing cam? I have a 246 hyd roller in my 512 and I think it is a little too big for a street car with 3.54 rear gears. But if you think you can go larger then go for it. I have CNC ported Edelbrock heads on my 512 which is probably why I don't need a very big cam.

If you're looking for more power I'd put Trick Flow heads on there and then see what you think. You might like how it works with better heads but the same cam.

In general, good heads with a smaller cam is a better combo than poor heads with a big cam. Lots of Mopar guys got used to the bad head + big cam combo in the old days but now you can do it the other way.

Thanks Andy. I am leaning toward the trick flows...what do you think about running 1.6's with the existing cam?

My Hydro roller in my 512 is 255 / 258 @ .050, 3.54 gear OD trans, lock up converter, works GREAT on the street.

If it was me doing the changes I would go with a set of 270 Trick flows with 1.6 rocker with your current cam and see how I liked those two changes
Keep in mind that big C.I. motors like big cams also

I wouldn't bother with the 1.6 rocker arms with the Trick Flow heads. I also wouldn't change cams until you get it running with the Trick Flow heads. I assume you'll put the 240 heads on there since it is a street car.

I did a bunch of cam testing and rocker arm testing with the Trick Flow heads and the bottom line is that those heads are so good they don't need a bunch of cam. In fact, if you use too big of a cam the intake just goes out the exhaust since the low lift flow is so good.

I'm sure you could find more power with a different cam than what you have but you'll have to be careful and take small steps. People who tell you that you need a big cam probably haven't run 100 dyno pulls with Trick Flow heads.

Read this and see if you think you need more rocker arm ratio. I spent a bunch of time and money testing those heads. They don't need more cowbell.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/trying-find-extra-power-rocker-arm-testing/

Your current cam gets a NO vote from me. The original COMP Xtreme hydraulics like yours go into valve train crash at a much lower RPM than most other hydraulic cams. Increasing the rocker ratio will only make it worse. I don't know if the HL series "fixed" that issue. Maybe Dwayne Porter can provide some input on how the HL lobes work.

I believe I'm experiencing this now with my xe274. I switched heads which includes what I would assume is a little stiffer spring and now, I'm experiencing crash at 5700-5800 rpm. Very frustrating. Get a cnc'd head that should flow around 50cfm more than my old heads and can't even test in higher rpm ranges to see what happens.

This has been my experience as well with typical heavy BB valve trains.
SB motors seem to be able to get closer to 6000....... even 6200 on something with light parts.
Ultimately, the lifters are the problem...... and more spring pressure only exacerbates the issue.

IMO, smoother hyd cam lobes or running a solid lifter cam(the better option) are the easiest way around it.
High rocker ratios usually cost you a couple hundred rpm.

Even if you choose to go hyd roller, lobes leaning towards “smoother” rather than “faster” are probably a safer option........ unless you feel like running the really high end lifters.

The XE/HL lobes work really well...... up to the point where the valvetrain becomes unstable...... which is almost never high enough for my liking.

Thanks everyone. Yes Andy, I'll be looking at the Trick Flow 240's and also looking at your trick flow and rocker arm testing! The current cam seems to do what its supposed to do. Idles nice at 850, its quiet and pulls pretty good from down low up to 5500. Havn't really tried spinning it higher than that. I dont have anything but the butt-meter to gauge the power, and it feels pretty decent as is...Butt, I want more .

Thanks Dwayne. In your experience with those cams, when do you typically start seeing the valvetrain become unstable?

I just change camshaft in my 512 with TF 240 and 10.4:1 komp.... Sitting in a bone stock E-body. Converter 4200 flashstall and 3.91 with 28" tires.
From dur 0.50 241° .564 lift to dur 0.50 251° and 594 lift (Mek FT)..... I like the "bigger" cam more because its still has a ridiculous amount of low end torque and now has little more on topp to play with.
Maybe a cam with that amount of dur in a 4 speed car can be annoying on the street?

Under 6k.
It’s not like it starts to get unstable, then you have a few hundred rpm left.
It’s like a switch........ it’s good right up until it’s total crap.
It runs into the wall.

Search for an old Mopar Muscle article called Mild Mannered Mauler, from like 2005.
They do a pretty good job of showing the challenges involved with getting those lobes to rpm.

Thanks. Its interesting that some have better experiences than others. Of course in my case, I havnt really pushed it to the limit to see what it does at higher rpms. I also have stock stamped rockers. Yes, thats what you get with a Muscle Motors street crate. Not judging, just sayin. They work fine. I have a couple sets of Crane roller rockers 1.5 (and 1.6) for the upgrade should I decide to do the Trick flow swap.

The slower the bleed rate of the lifters, the better your results will be.

You should read that article....... it’s the only one I’ve seen that doesn’t sugar coat the situation.

With my old 213 big valve heads from Hughes with an unknown valve spring, I had no issues revving mine up to 6300 rpm. I used to shift around 5900 or 6000 at the track. There was no hint of any issues on a chassis dyno spinning it to 6000.

For years, people have described what Dwayne mentioned above and now I'm experiencing it and I'm not happy about it.

It may be time for a cam change but, I think I'm just going to drive it for awhile. I'm tired of wrenching on it this year and have other irons in the fire.

Unfortunately, the seat of the pants feel is the same as “valve float”, so it’s not always clear as to what the problem is.
The old heads had a spring that could maintain control, and the lifters were cooperating.

I did an experiment on a BBC years ago that wouldn’t go over about 55-5600 with a hyd cam.
I swapped out the springs for something with about 20lbs more on the seat and like 40-50 open.
It gained maybe 100rpm, but when it nosed over with the stiffer springs it did so more abruptly than with the lighter springs.
Ultimately I swapped the cam for a small solid, and used springs which were in between the previous two........ the motor pulled effortlessly to 6500(never saw any float), and as a result picked up about 30hp.

As for the situation with the head swap in the post above, I would be comparing the open/closed spring loads between the two sets of heads as a starting point.
Is the rest of the valvetrain the same as before?
Same rockers and pushrods?
Same lifter preload?
Same brand and viscosity of oil?

Those can all be factors when running hyd lifters.

The takeaway here should be, the likelyhood of achieving good high rpm results when using hyd lifters is directly linked to the bleed rate of the lifters....... not just being sure the springs/rockers/pushrods are matched to the cam profile.
With a solid lifter cam, that very unpredictable variable is removed.

Dwayne - I get the impression you might prefer solid lifters .

Thank you for the valuable info. If this were a few years ago, I'd probably have a solid roller in there by now. I'm still intrigued by which combination of parts makes the most power, only now I'm realistic about if, how and when I can even use it. Not to mention how much wrenching am I willing to do.

Check out the old article I did for PHR: http://www.moparts.org/Tech/Archive/bb/Lobe.html

I used Comp Xtreme Chrysler Hyd flat tappet lobes in that engine and they worked way better than I hoped for. That setup would spin past 7000 rpm without any sign of problems. That was my old 470 engine with ported Edelbrock heads and I used 5965/5985 lobes which was 241/247. Lift was 0.545 with a 1.5 rocker arm. I was using a beehive spring which might be part of the answer.

That was a sweet cam in that engine. Nice and quiet, good low end and it would pull hard for as long as I wanted to stay in it on the street. I'd think a cam like that would work just about perfect in your engine.

I'm using a Crane hyd roller in my 512 and it spins as high as I want to go. I've had it up past 6500 rpm and it was still pulling but I was going way faster than I should on the street so I lifted. I'll get it on the chassis dyno later this month and we'll see how it works there but so far I haven't run into any issues.

But I've seen a fair number of hyd flat tappet and roller problems on the dyno. It does seem to be a bit of hit and miss on the combination. If the combination isn't happy then the cams just stop working at higher speeds.

Tony, I have dynoed numerous engines with hyd cams where the upward trajectory of the hp curve was still fairly steep....... only to have it fall off a cliff when the lifters gave up.
It usually works out that way when the heads and induction are pretty good and will support more rpm than what I typically can get out if a hyd cam/lifter package.
Sometimes it’s high enough where the owner doesn’t really care...... sometimes it’s not, and then decisions and choices have to be made.

For myself, I really prefer any type of what I would call a “high performance” build to have the valvetrain be suitable for about 62-6500rpm capability, even if the power peaks are lower than that.

Some customers or builds just aren’t a good match for solid lifters....... then the expectations need to be adjusted.

The last hyd cammed BB I dynoed was a 505 with a pretty mild hyd cam(.483 lift), using lobes I have successfully run to about 6300 in oval track SB’s.
This 505 had rpm heads and 1.5 Mancini rockers.
The cam was pretty short duration and coupled with a small intake manifold(original Torker), peaked at a low rpm(5100), which was a few hundred before the airflow numbers started backing up(this is usually the first tell tale of valvetrain instability).
I was making pulls to 5700, and never heard any unhappiness from the motor, but the airflow numbers indicated some loss of control above 5400, and the motor lost 30hp from 5500 to 5700.
Based on past experiences, In the car, I’m sure it would still feel like it was perfectly happy to about 5900-6000.

The rest of the valve train is the same as before. Smith Brothers pushrods, Isky ductile rocker arms gone through and bushed by rocker arms unlimited and Brad Penn 20w-50. I've actually messed with the pre-load a little to see if it made any difference and it did not.

I'll most likely be calling you within the next year or so to have you spec a cam for me. I think I'm just going to go with a solid; the Mopar 528 sounds like it will fit the bill pretty good. This is a FAST type build so; it's weird (HP manifolds, crappy 301 intake and etc.)

If it is true street car that rarely sees the north side of 6000 rpm then there is probably no downside to using a good hyd flat tappet cam. It might give up a little peak power but if your aren't shifting at redline then it doesn't really matter.

That was the conclusion I came to after trying 5 different cams in my Coronet. The hyd flat tappet was quiet and had the same peak power as the solid flat tappet cams. I tested all of those cams on a chassis dyno so I could see what they were doing, but my butt dyno was perfectly happy with the hyd cam too. I was using good rocker arms, good pushrods and good springs so your mileage may vary.

I think whatever Tony does, it should include a before & after chassis dyno session.

Would be pretty cool actually... although I don't think I'll be showing up with five cams like Andy!

I've been running an XE295HL cam in my 440 (w/ OOTB Indy SRs and 1.5 Harland Sharp rockers) for about eight years now with no issues. The valve train/lifters are pretty noisy. Of course, the engine rarely sees anything over 5500 rpm, so take it with a grain of salt.

From what I've heard first hand, that's the XE hydraulic "signature".

From what I remember the Xtreme Chrysler hyd lobes were very quiet. I don't think the Chrysler hyd lobes are offered in any of the catalog cams which might be why they aren't very popular. You have to know they exist in order to buy them. I just used them that one time and they worked great but I haven't used them since. I think that was the last time I used a hyd flat tappet cam.

The XE/HL lobes are the .904 fast rate hyd lobes.
The 275, 285, 295 are all catalog cams.

There have been numerous posts throughout the various forums where owners have discussed/complained about the noisy operation.
Again, this comes right back to the bleed rate of the lifter.
For a “normal” lifter with regular hyd internals, the slower the bleed rate, the quieter it will be in operation.

Tony, I wasn’t really suggesting parts swapping on the chassis dyno....... more like a test it as it is now for a baseline, then again after the upgrades.

I vaguely remember something about the lifters that I installed with the XE295HL cam being somehow different than what is regularly sold with them. I remember Comp selling some "special" type of hydraulic lifters that may have pumped up quickly and essentially acted like solid lifters afterwards. Anyway, my point is that I didn't use what Comp typically suggests for the XE295HL cam and used lifters that (IIRC) a guy at Comp that I talked to suggested instead. Obviously, my memory on the subject isn't too good. Maybe someone with more experience like fast68plymouth knows the type of lifters that I'm referring to.

Okay, looks like I was running a XE285HL cam in my 470 when I did that article but they spread the lobes to 112 which is why I always thought it was a custom cam.

I guess I don't have anything to add on the noise or the issue people have with those cams not pulling RPM well. The setup I had ran past 7000 rpm on the chassis dyno and it was very quiet in the engine. Maybe I just got lucky with my install for some reason.

Maybe the appropriate lifter bleed-down rate and the benefits of those beehive springs really pay off with that style of cam...

I know Dwayne, I was just joking .

My current xe284 (non-hl) cam seems pretty quiet. Maybe because of the less aggressive grind?

The noisy ones I heard were the original like yours, not the HL. Maybe you got lucky and they sent you an old pre-Xtreme grind!

I have the Comp XE295HL in my red 70' Charger with close to 30,000 miles on it now. It is a little noisy but doesn't bother me at all. My car has power disc brakes & I did have to add a vacuum can that I hid under the battery tray. It used to get a little dicey if I got caught in bumper to bumper traffic. Much better now with the can.

The XE/HL lobes make very good power for hyd cams.
The upper rpm power is “usually” limited by the lifters.
I think it’s the exception rather than the norm that a motor combo using one of those cams, along with good heads and exhaust, will peak at the rpm determined by the “combination” rather than the lifters ability to maintain proper control of the valvetrain.
However, I’ll admit I’m basing that off a pretty small sampling of examples when compared to how many are in service.

In the MM article they tried the beehive springs, and on that motor were worth a zero rpm gain.
Interestingly(?), I had been down the fast rate hyd cam road well before that article came out and had already come to the conclusion the issue was the lifters.
A Moparts member was exchanging pm’s with dulcich while that build was going on, prior to the article coming out, and he had been passing along some of the info to me.
When I heard what the cam/rocker plan was, I said it wouldn’t work....... and it didn’t........ at least not well enough for them to reach their goal.
The final test they did provided the “proof” that the lifters were the thing limiting the upper rpm capability........ but it also showed something else, that they never touched on, but if you look at the power curves it’s pretty evident.

If you do a search for something like “noisy comp cams xe cams” you find no shortage of complaints.
I had forgotten about my very first experience with one until reading a few of them.
We rebuilt a 305 sbc for a guys boat, and he wanted just a little more grunt to help get water skiers up.
We put in either an xe250 or 256(can’t remember which), and it worked well enough in that regard, but from about 4000rpm up the valvetrain was horrendously loud.
We went and checked everything over, found no issues...... it was just that noisy.
The noise was unacceptable to the owner, so we ended up installing a stock replacement marine cam in it...... which was way waaaay quieter.

I dug around on my hard drive and found some of the original cam test data. This is from 2004 but I was able to export it to a jpg file so I think I can attach it here. The XE285HL cam curve looks pretty much the same as the curve from the solid lifter cams. I didn't always let off the gas at the same point so the drop off point changes. I think the first test I did I freaked out at 150 mph and lifted but as I got more comfortable on the dyno I held it longer. Some of the last tests I pushed it past 160 mph before lifting.

Here is the same info with RPM as the axis. At 6000 rpm the hyd cam was making the most power. By 6500 rpm it was making the least power so perhaps it started to leak down after 6000 rpm. But even so, it was a strong cam in this engine. Quiet, no maintenance and more power at 6000 rpm seems like a decent combo for a street engine.

here is a link to the article. also if you right click and open the image in a new tab you can see the graph nice and large.
http://www.moparts.org/Tech/Archive/bb/Lobe.html

the baseline is the mopar 528 cam?
that cam looks like it works great in that motor, but the racer brown looks super punchy on the low end, maybe the short duration plus the tighter LSA?

This is more along the lines of what I’ve experienced, and heard on the phone during calls where people aren’t happy with their upper rpm power with fast rate hyd cams, particularly in a BB.

https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/pops-engine-another-440-on-the-dyno.261378/

https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/do-these-440-dyno-numbers-look-right.305813/

This is certainly one of those situations where “YMMV”.

Yes, baseline is Mopar 528 solid. The Racer Brown was 236 @ 050. It was very strong down low but ran out of steam a tad early. I still have that Racer Brown cam sitting in a box out in the shop waiting for another project to come along. It would be a fun cam in a mild stroker.

I should point out that all of these cam tests were run with cast iron exhaust manifolds, Performer RPM intake and a 800 cfm Edelbrock carb. So it wasn't anything super high dollar. The Edelbrock heads were touched up by Dwayne but I don't think they were ported. Valve job and some blending I think.

So,is it the the cam design or the lifter that causes the valvetrain "crash"? Is there a "better" lifter out there, or is this just to be expected with the xe grind or any aggressive hydraulic grind, regardless of the lifter used? I know for example, Hughes has had aggressive hydraulics for years, and I cant say I heard anything negative about their cams.

It’s a bit of a “chicken a or the egg” situation.

The lifter can’t cope with the velocities produced by the cam.
The cam produces velocities the lifters can’t cope with.

You have more control over picking the cam profile than you do with the internal clearances of the lifters.

There are certainly much fewer reports of noise or rpm problems with the Hughes cams than the Comp XE designs, but in all fairness it’s probably about a1000 to 1 ratio for the number of units sold, plus......every make vs Mopar only.

That being said, if someone def felt like a fast rate hyd cam was going in their motor, the Hughes cams are probably a good option(I say “probably” because I’ve never used one myself...... so no personal experience).

If rpm capability is also somewhat important, then I’d keep the 1.5 ratio rockers, use pretty light weight rockers, and make sure you run adequate spring loads.

It would make for a fun dyno shootout though.
Say an XE vs XE/HL vs Voodoo vs Hughes.

I’ll add that to the list of stuff I’d like to test, but probably will never have the time to do.

If you do some searching around, you’ll see this problem is also fairly prevalent in retrofit hyd roller applications, especially big blocks with high rocker ratios.

^^^ is where my thoughts on the subject end up.

Or p!ss on the whole hydraulic "thing" and run a solid, which is the direction I went starting in the late '90s.

I have the MP 280° 0.471" in my 383 GTS. I'm guessing peak power is probably 6000, best shift probably 6400 and it will go 7000. I cannot imagine what a turd it would be with a similar size XE or XEHL. It would probably make 10 more hp at 5200, but be a half second and 5 mph slower. Just speculating.

I agree. Lashing valves is not that big of deal and doesnt require it being done often. Mine are fairly quite on a .640" lift flat tappet.

This. Probably never go back to hydraulic.

Yep. Experienced this in a 12:1 340. Had a solid 258/258@50 .580" range and thought it might make better torque with xe240@50 range hydraulic. What a joke. Not only way slower but hit a wall about 5800rpm. Solid would run right up to 7200. Put the solid back in and never had another hydraulic.

Well as you can see from the dyno graphs I posted, the XE285HL worked just fine up to about 150 mph in my Coronet. I wasn't interested in going any faster than 150 mph so I considered it a success.

For what it's worth, with my xe274, I just switched from a big valve 213 head with a bowl blend and a performer rpm to a cnc'd set of 906's with the same valve size and a dp4b and my car went .04 slower. The new heads probably flow 30-50 cfm more than the old heads.

I also switched tires which are working much better so; I think it would have been even slower with the old tires. FYI- I run street tires.

To reiterate, with my old heads with an unknown spring, I did not have valve crash and now I do. I seriously think if I was not experiencing the issue and could take the thing to 6200-6300, I would have at least picked up a few tenths.

Time will tell. Whenever I'm done pouting, get some other things taken care of and feel like messing with it, I'll probably throw a Mopar 528 solid or something very similar in it. I'll report back when this happens.

ET notwithstanding....... the “rev limiter” will be turned up when you put the solid in.

How that translates to the time slip will be interesting.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hotrod.com/articles/mopp-0312-solid-vs-hydraulic-lifters/amp/

Replacing a Performer RPM with a DP4B probably killed 30 hp by itself.

I was recently talking with one of my regular customers.
He’d had a stroker SB with a 6bbl on the dyno not long ago.
I had sold him a cam for it....... he was commenting how he’s generally happier with the builds/results when they get solid cams vs hyd cams.

The tight-lash solids I've run on the street have been quieter than the noisy "fast rate" hydraulics I've heard, too. Other than an occasional lash check for sanity purposes, I see no down side to a SFT, as long as you don't go crazy w/ lobe designs that require wear-inducing spring loads to keep the valve train under control at high RPM.

I know I killed off some power with the dp4b but, I would seriously doubt 30hp. In Dwayne's old data on his 383 which is making similar power to my motor, he gave up 25.7hp going from the stock intake to a performer RPM and we all know that the dp4b is a better intake than the stock piece.

I’d planned on taking it back to the dyno to confirm what the changes did but, I don’t know if it’s even worth it now. Given the new valve crash, I really can’t do an apples to apples comparison since I’m now rpm limited.

My expectation would be that with more cubes and higher capacity heads the difference between the 301 vs the rpm would be amplified.
I’ve done numerous flow tests with various manifolds bolted to heads with different levels of rework, and I can tell you that at least as far as the flow bench is concerned........ the 301 really puts the hurtin to the flow of a ported 906 head.

If it will go 57-5800 without any issues, that should be high enough to find the peak....... on the engine dyno.

More variables on the chassis dyno.

If nothing else, it should show how the numbers compare prior to the “float”, and if it’s actually doing what you think it is.
Along with establishing another baseline point.

The FAST 511 I built peaked at 5800 with 12:1 and a solid roller cam.

Another FAST 511 I tested(but didn’t build) also peaked at 5800, with a much higher lift roller cam along with a much more extensively modified(higher flowing) intake manifold.

High CR 526 6bbl, roller....... peaked at 6100.

But...... none of that has anything to do with the original topic.😬

I have dyno tested a bunch of different Mopar V8 motor combinations, what produces the most power on the engine dyno doesn't mean you have to shift it at peak HP RPM peak torque RPM to get the car to go as fast as it can
My 511 C.I. low deck six pack motor made peak HP at 5500 RPM and peak torque at 4500 RPM on one DTS dyno and peak HP at 5600 and peak torque at 4600 RPM on a Stuka engine dyno, that stupid motor like to be shifted at or above 7000 RPM at the track to go as fast as it would, any thing less, shifting below 7000 RPM, would slow it down
I started racing it by shifting at 5500 RPM and then 6000 RPM, it went faster at 6000 RPM so I tried shifting it at 5000 RPM, it went slower than 5500 RPM so I tried shifting it at 6500 RPM and it went quicker and faster so I then tried 7000 RPM and at 7500 RPM. It ran almost the same at 7000 and 7500 RPM so I shift it between 7000 and 7500 RPM now
My message is to test, test and test some more to get the best results

I agree, my experiences have been somewhat similar. My original combination was like that. My torque curve was flat but, started to fall off by a few ft. lbs. at around 5100 rpm. The HP did the same thing at a little bit higher RPM but, in order the turn the fastest times at the track, I needed to shift it 500 or so rpm past the peak HP power. I believe the recovery rpm dropped right back in the sweet spot where the motor made the most power.

Another FAST 511 I tested(but didn’t build) also peaked at 5800, with a much higher lift roller cam along with a much more extensively modified(higher flowing) intake manifold.

Dwayne, was this the Dart with the furnace braised intake manifold and if so; who's car was it? I was trying to think of this guy's name the other day. I know you've mentioned it in one of the past threads a few years ago but, I can't for the life of me remember the guy's name.

So, back the xe cam for a minute. I did google Comp xe cam issues and cant say I saw anything remarkable. Lets face it, you can google anything and find someone displeased about something and wanting to tell the world about it. I definitely see both sides here. One being that for a street engine not planning or needing to spin their engine above 6k, and also for someone who prefers low maintenance, a hydraulic grind can be a good choice. (Again, my xe284 grind seems to be doing exactly what its supposed to do). I also agree that a solid lifter cam can make more power and rpm much better and higher. And maintenance isnt a huge deal, other than the break in IMO.

Lots of great info exchanged here. Its awesome that we can ask a question and get thoughtful responses from (literally) engine gurus, and intelligent guys who have real world experience using these parts. I'm just a hobbyist, so class is in session for me. I guess my next question is, why hasnt someone come up with a better hydraulic lifter yet, or is that not a realistic possibility?

There are probably some good lifters for Mopar big blocks out there. If you are really curious I'd suggest calling Gaterman Products and/or Morel and asking some questions. Brian at IMM has a lot of experience with hyd rollers in Mopar engines so he is another guy to call and talk to. He has a recipe for making it work.

You don’t really need anyone to explain to you the pros and cons of running an XE cam in your motor......... you already have one.

If you’re satisfied with the performance with it....... that’s all that matters.

Yeah, but by doing what it's supposed to, still means it has typical hydraulic cam limitations. Not trying to be ungrateful for good advice and info, I just don't see the problem with the xe grind. Not in my experience at least.

My original question was inquiring about another cam that might make more power, so I can't say Im completely satisfied. I may end up keeping what I have for now, but I do enjoy planning the next move. Even if it takes a while to execute .

Part of the “making more power with a bigger cam” scenario, is being able to take advantage of the extra duration by allowing the motor to peak at a higher rpm.

With a fast rate hyd cam, it may or may not play out that way.

With that, there is logic in fast rate hydraulics for big cubic inch, lower rpm street applications, verses my 383 scenario.

Just curious, what cam are you running in the sleeper Charger?

I’m pretty sure it’s not a fast rate hydraulic 😉

Tony, it's a solid roller. It has older school, smaller, milder lobes so I can get away with a 200/500 spring. I think the guy that sold it to me called it a "lollipop" cam. I think the numbers are similar to the Scott Brown solid you had in your exhaust manifold car.