No. Street cars have wide LSA, race cars have narrow LSA. First thing you need to do is figure out if you're building a street car or a race car. If you're building a street car you shouldn't be asking so many questions in the race forum. When you ask questions in the race forum you get answers from racers. Could be part of your confusion.......

And this is exactly why you need to get on the phone and talk with someone who actually knows what they are doing and not some guy who is paid to answer phones and sell you a cam off the shelf.

Not to pick out any one company, but let's say my no name ass calls Comp. I'm a nobody. I'm going to get to talk to a dude whose job requires him to punch in some numbers in his computer and spit out a cam off the shelf. And maybe, if you are lucky, they'll move the LSA to make you think you are getting something worthy of what you should have.


If I call Cam Motion, I talk to the same guy every single time. When I was buying 10 cams a month, I developed a relationship with that guy, and he understood what I expected. Cam Motion never failed to deliver.

If you call Jones cams, you will talk to Mike Jones himself. We have different opinions on how things should be, so I didn't use many of his cams, but his stuff works and you get to talk to him, not some phone dude.

If I call Racer Brown, I get to talk to Jim. Jim answers the phone. Jim grinds every cam. On my last build, I had done some things most guys wouldn't do to a street engine. I also wanted to run 11:1 compression on pump gas (and did) and with my valve job and port work, I decided after spending way too much time on the flow bench, I needed to net .600 lift, even though the heads broke over at .500 lift and didn't gain it all back, but I got some back around .650 lift.

Jim was the ONLY one of the 5 cam grinders I called who even considered discussing why I wanted that much lift. Everyone else said I was wasting my time opening the valve that much.

In the end, I ended up with .620 gross lift and I net a bit over .600 and not because Jim caved and gave me what I wanted. I sent him copies of the flow sheets with my copious and boring notes. I also sent him a drawing of the cutter I used to the valve job so he could see what I was talking about.

In the end, the Racer Brown grind was about .060 or more lift than any other grinder said I should use, was a tight lash lobe and the LSA was nowhere near what anyone else thought it should be.

The engine will idle at 750, but I don't let it idle that slow. It doesn't idle any rougher that a 270 degree hydraulic but will pull to 7,000 all day long.


So sometimes it don't about the name on the box. It's about who you get along with that ends up getting you something worth the effort.

You just can't guess at an arbitrary LSA and say it's the magic number. It isn't. It's the sum of the events. It does make a difference for sure.


That's why I say put away your preconceived ideas of what you think you need. In fact, if I was building your engine, I'd be ordering the cam and not you, the customer. But that's how I did it.

That's exactly what I thought, but Mr Cab said the lower LSA would be better for the street. I was thinking "man I know around where I should get for my LSA" then he answered that way and made me rethink. Before, his response I was 100% sure I should get a 110-112 LSA cam anyway. Im only asking in here because it's engine tech specifically too.

There are two hydraulic rollers from Howards Cams that I found that look to be in the right range, anyone have any experience with either of these:
1. 235/241 @.050, 110 LSA, 106 centerline, .545/.545 lift
2. 243/251 @.050, 109 LSA, 103 centerline, .530/.515
What exactly does the bigger difference in LSA and centerline mean, this would be installed 6 degrees advanced correct?
And what is affected when theres more intake lift than exhaust?

If the above generalization is correct, why is my 98% street cam on a 105 LSA, installed on a 105 ICL?

It's difficult to make generalizations like that. I know that catalog cams all have a default LSA. Look at an Isky catalog. All that stuff is on a 108. Look at Comp. 99% of their stuff is on a 110.

That's why I hate catalog cams. There is never a reason to buy a cam off the shelf. LSA is a sum of the cam timing events and nothing more.

If you go to speedtalk.com and search for LSA and find dozens of threads where this has been hashed out and beat to death by some of the best minds on the web. Mike Jones is in some of them. David Vizard posts about LSA and those two don't always agree. The head dyno guy for one of the NASCAR teams posts in those threads and plenty of other guys who have forgotten more than I'll never know.


If you establish in your mind what ought to be, without enough background, knowledge and experience, you're going to have issues doing what you want.

I personally don't see a reason to build a pump gas engine at less that 10.5:1 for about anything. I may squeeze my junk to 11.5:1 later on. But you have to understand how everything else affects every other decision you make. Hell, I can't see any reason to use a 45* valve job on any performance build any more. I use a 50* seat. I can't think of a reason not to.

But that's just me.

You are asking great questions. But you are asking the wrong people.

Call Howard's and ask them. Take notes. Then call 6,7 or even 10 other cam grinders and give them the exact same numbers and see what they say. Take notes. Then sit down and compare the answers.

Also, you should ask them why the split pattern cam? Are they adding exhaust duration, or reducing intake duration. Because it makes a difference.

I say they are reducing intake duration. Then they move the timing around on the exhaust side to get the LSA wider. This kills the all important mid range power, so the shift RPM will stay the same as if you put the intake duration back in and closed the LSA up.

With production style heads, I'm a big advocate of single pattern cams. The split pattern cams look cool on paper, but almost always they are down on power in the mid range. That's the worst place to give up power I can think of.

Get on the phone. Write down all the questions you can think of. Ask the cam grinders. Again, take notes.

You'll be surprised what you find.

The actual overlap window, which has a large effect on idle quality and low speed response, is VERY different between 240° @ .050" & 112° LSA and 250° @ .050" & 108° LSA.
Averaging cam event timing is banging your head against the wall. Ask a good porting service what your heads like w/r/t in/ex bias.

i posted a question in the other thread, i can't keep up with all the threads and i think it might've acutally been deleted.

Nick, why not build a 440/512 with a -17cc dish piston...you would get 10.5:1 compression (roughly) with a 78cc combustion chamber...

Watch out now he'll start another thread about building a 512 over the motor he wants now

You were on the right track before you got derailed. For your type of build I'd go with a cam that is 230's in duration at 050 and 112 LSA. The old Mopar 0.528 solid cam is a good street cam for a stroker big block. It is 236 duration and 112 LSA. Works great on the street and pulls hard to 6000 rpm.

What you are trying to accomplish isn't difficult. The shop I work with has five BB Mopar stroker engines on the floor right now in various stages of assembly. Any one of those engines would work just fine in your car. They are all pump gas strokers with aluminum heads and street cams. They will all make at least 500 hp and one or two might be closer to 550. Building engines like this is routine for some of us.

108 lsa here installed at about 105 street/strip car, 470 stroker 6.15 at 112+ mph in the 1/8 9.6 in the 1/4 now it's more than you are looking for but PLENTY street-able just check out my video on here titled :How do I post a you tube video on here"...........Another approach I make when picking a cam as I have Isky grind mine, is weight.....heavy car and less powerful motor, less duration, lighter car good power, more duration........This is one of many other factors involved...............

230 @ .050 at those cubes? Not how I would go as the cubes will make it purr like a kitten not roar like a TIGER......I know you build this n that Andy and if mellow is the goal then he should be REAL happy..........

Not a bad idea at all, if i can keep the .030 over id gladly do that, but i dont know what condition it is in. We will just have to see when its apart.