Another help me choose a cam thread 69 Charger 440 4spd 3.54

Hey Guys,

Would like your opinion on a new cam for my car. The car is a '69 Charger, '69 440, 4-spd, 3.54 Dana, 295/50/15 tires. Engine is running factory carb, intake, 906 heads and exhaust manifolds with stock exhaust system with repro hemi mufflers. Compression is 11.26:1, heads cleaned up with larger exhaust valve. Other than that, pretty stock.

What I'm looking for is a cam that will enable the most performance from the engine given the restrictions of the stock carb, intake and exhaust. Also, being a big heavy car with a 4-spd. I don't care about how it sounds, just how it runs.

Looking for single bolt, hydraulic cam for stock rocker assy.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

better get some race gas for that compression & iron heads

Are you sure about that compression ratio? That's a lot for iron heads.
If you were at 9.5:1 with iron, or 10.0 with aluminum, I'd say the Engle cam I put in my 446" 440 - 4speed, 3.55s, taller tire, '63 Savoy wagon - would be great. It was 224/234 @ .050, lift was around .504/.512, 110 CL. Well-behaved, nice street cam, not too rumpity, fine with 92 octane. That car ran Eddy heads and the full Maxie exhaust system, single 850 Holley, 10.0:1 actual CR. You can find the lobe specs at their website.

That is a hand grenade with the pin out waiting to tossed into chaos causing destruction
Trust me on that, your messing with the big hurt with that much compression on todays pump gas

Yes, I run race gas in it. It's 11:26 compression.

The Crower HDP282 grind (PN 32243) would be a good match for that combo. It is a "manifold friendly" profile and works fine with restrictive exhaust and factory heads with stock valvetrain.

https://www.crower.com/camshafts/mopar-350-440-b-compu-pro-hydraulic-cam-282-hdp.html



Ron

Thanks Ron, I'll check it out!

Your intake is by far your performance limiting factor. Will you be modifying it in anyway? Bob K. cam or something like the Crower 271 is what I would probably look at.

I had not thought about modifying the intake. How do you mean, modify it? By Crower 271, do you mean the 32241?

Thanks!

You'll need to consult with a professional or someone that has done some testing with FAST cars. I would think that milling out the dividers,add a 1/2" spacer and an 800 cfm Eddy AVS would make a meaningful difference.

32242.

So you left everything pretty stock but bumped up the compression a bunch. You changed pistons for sure to do that, if you didn't, you don't have 11.26 comp.

But with that said, with all the stock parts you are using there are a bunch of cams you could use. With the biggest restrictions stock intake and exhaust and 906 heads id go with a cam around 238* @.050 around .500 lift on a 108LSA. Any bigger and she will feel like a dog around town.


If you did change your pistons and have a true 11.26 , im not sure I would go much bigger then that either, because of the stock manifolds and intake. If it were a automatic with a vert, I would say you could go a little bigger.

if you want to go that large ^, you could try this comp cam, perhaps it's an updated purple shaft grind...

http://www.compcams.com/Company/CC/cam-specs/Details.aspx?csid=718&sb=2

I think you could run a little extra duration with that compression but i'd spread the lobe separation a little too.

That’s what I was thinking.

I did a bunch of testing on that stuff 8-10 years ago.
As Russ said, the stock intake is really a cork.

Stock 906 head @.500 lift = 226cfm
Bolt on stock intake manifold = 189cfm
Mild clean up stock intake = 195cfm
Mild clean up 6bbl intake = 217cfm

Mild ported 346 head @.500 lift = 259cfm
With stock intake = 202cfm
Mild clean up stock intake = 212cfm
Mild clean up 6bbl intake = 242cfm
Gasket matched RB M1 single plane = 255cfm

The stock head with the cleaned up 6bbl intake outflows the ported head with the cleaned up 4bbl intake.

I have a Erson e410421 in a 70 4speed charger RT with stock intake, heads, and kb 236's Its been 12.60's at 108 with 26in slicks bolted on, and the 8-track blasting Foghat. The cam idles with a nice lope, but not to crazy. I know it's technically a Chevy grind but with .472 lift it fit right in with no extra work.

Yes, long story short, after replacing pistons, decking block, surfacing heads, the engine builder used a thin head gasket and that's what the compression wound up at. It's had the heads cleaned up with mild porting. It is already assembled, but needs a new cam due to cam bearings not being installed correctly resulting in oil starvation. So, this is not a new rebuild. I'm keeping it stock externally. I don't know that the cam that was in it previously was the right choice given the engines restrictions, so just wondering what your recommendations are. Thanks for all the input!!

Could you give me an example of what you think would work?

Thanks!

Purple shaft hemi grind

It's to bad you can't buy one new, they would wake up a stock motor.

If this has already been suggested by anyone before me, sorry for the duplication.

My $.02 (ignoring the CR being way too high for pump gas):
- A singe-pattern 220-224 at .050, or only a 2-4 degree split on the exhaust
- LSA 112-114 since the exhaust system is sub-par and you don't want too much overlap

I don't see the need for extra exhaust duration cuz it's not gonna want to rev anyway with the restrictive stock top-end stuff. It'll probably start running out of breath around 5000 RPM. If you upgraded to a 6-bbl setup, then the extra exhaust duration could help some.

Keep all the torque you can for the heavy car and long gears. You can't "crutch it" with a performance converter's higher-than-stock stall, which requires a fairly small cam to retain decent low-speed drivability and throttle response.

It'll be nicer to drive in general, even if it MIGHT give up a few HP at peak power. This could be one of those combinations were a bigger cam won't do anything but LOSE torque across the usable RPM range, gaining you nothing.

For sure........ it’s knowing just how big is big enough without being too big😬

Not to beat a dead horse, but what pistons? You/someone would need to have purchased a domed high compression piston which are normally reserved for racing. You cannot mill 906 heads and deck the block to 11.2 CR with a typical replacement type piston.

That is why I recommended what I did. The intake is done at 5000. I don't mean its past peak, I mean done. To maximize usable power, probably a cam that peaks at 4500 to 4600 rpm.

Change the intake, totally different game.

I’d be looking for a ch4b.
It wouldn’t be night and day....... but it would be something, and basically looks stock.

I'd just stick a 509 in it with the stick shift it should work good
Gus

I was thinking; do we know what cam is in the engine now? or are we assuming a stock magnum cam?

Not sure, I let the engine builder buy them and that's the CR he told me. I can tell you it doesn't like pump gas!!

It has a COMP Cam XE268H high energy, which was OK. Just wondering if there's something better.

Neither does mine, lugged in 4th it sounds like a paint can on straight pump gas. However it takes so little to get it to stop. 1 gallon of race stuff to five gallons pump quiets it right up.

from my experience I don't like a comp cams 268 anything in a 440. for example; going from a comp cams 268/276 to a mopar 272/.455 I picked up 2-3mph in the quarter with a stock type engine. those 268's are 110lsa with 4 degrees of advance no matter what flavor you buy. they close the intake valve way too early. a cheapo summit 6401 is a better cam for what your doing. there are some lobes out there that may improve on the summit but will need to be custom ground.

Not a product bash by any means....... more of a “heads up” for whom it may concern.

The big Summit cam is a tried and true White Box cam in a 440......as well as other makes and families of engines.
One of my friends was freshening a 455 Pontiac for a customer of his, asked about a good off the shelf cam for the motor, and I suggested that same grind.
He got it, put it in...... motor ran decent enough with it.
Well, someone didn’t do a good enough job checking the condition of the rod bores and/or clearances, and within 50 miles it sounded like a rod bearing was failing.

Pulls it apart, sure enough a rod bearing is going away(not spun, but down to copper all the way around).

He gets to looking things over and is concerned with one of the cam lobes.
Says the corresponding lifter looks fine, but doesn’t like the lobe.
He brings it over for me to look at, sure enough that lobe has started to go.
It’s got about .010 or so missing off the nose.

I could’ve dismissed it as poor assembly or break in practices except for what I saw on the other 15 lobes.
The lifter wear track was right down the center of the lobe. This lead me to put the cam in the lathe and measure the lifter taper.
Indicating across the bearing journals showed basically zero movement, then checking 8-10 various lobes showed what I suspected by seeing the centered wear pattern....... less than .001 lobe taper.
Most performance cams have between .0015-.0020 lobe taper.
The reduced taper resulted in the lifters having contact basically at the center of the crown, which results in poor lifter rotation.

The other issue I found and didn’t care for was there was quite a bit of chatter all the way around the lobes........ with the wear pattern having a railroad track look to it.

I’ve used those cams in the past with pretty good results, but after seeing that....... I won’t anymore.

I got a custom Comp for that 455, a little bigger....... it had .002 lobe taper...... good lifter rotation...... no issues with that one.

howards has lobes that would be more accurate for duplicating the summit cam. intake lobe 1hf225310/exhaust lobe 1hf235325.


my experience with the stock/near stock engines is to get the intake valve to close at 70, or a little more, degrees ABDC. the summit cam closes at 72ABDC according to my notes. the 268 comp is 60ABDC.

A couple years ago we put a Howard’s 720141-12 in a fresh 440-6 rebuild.

It worked well enough but there might have been a few hp left on the table.
Made like 410hp with headers(manifolds in the car).

I can attest to this.I have a ch4b on my well ported iron headed 496 with an older Hughes Engines solid lifter cam(smallest solid they made at the time).I did send the intake to Hughes for their "deep port match".All this was done 20 years ago it seems.

That intake has no problem turning 6k rpm and pulling to it in my 496.

lots of good hints
The Nostalgia plus may be OK, maybe not - Duration may be too big for your driving style and build- maybe not
lobe centers may be too narrow for that CR- essentially a repop of the Direct Connection/ Racer Brown 284 cam
but I'd be looking at the XE275HL series if comp cams is your thing- and what they have may or may not be OK
The 268 most likely too small with that compression and it's not optimized for Mopar in the first place
U have a unique combination
I'd contact Racer Brown and Bullet/Ultradine lots more Hyd selections as does Howard
key is getting advise from the grinder for your combination
Lunati Voodoo is always a good call for MOPARS
agree on holding down overlap
really easy to give up the low end without having the flow or revs to have a big top end so build an "Engine Masters" type torque curve