I keep reading that stroker engines like a wider lobe separation angle. Can someone explain why. I'm building a 505 with 11:1 comp trick flow 270 heads and a Indy dual plane with max wedge ports and I'm trying to figure out what cam to use. I'm leaning towards this Hughes cam http://www.hughesengines.com/Index/...mxhdCBUYXBwZXQsIFNvbGlk&partid=30281

But have it ground with a 110 or 112 LSA
3:91 gear and a 4 speed
Thanks

I keep reading that stroker engines like a wider lobe separation angle.

I keep reading that stroker engines like a wider lobe separation angle. Can someone explain why. I'm building a 505 with 11:1 comp trick flow 270 heads and a Indy dual plane with max wedge ports and I'm trying to figure out what cam to use. I'm leaning towards this Hughes cam http://www.hughesengines.com/Index/...mxhdCBUYXBwZXQsIFNvbGlk&partid=30281

But have it ground with a 110 or 112 LSA
3:91 gear and a 4 speed
Thanks

This is a decent article but beware of term confusion. The author says tight LSA cams have more low end torque but what he really means is that they have more mid-range torque. The low end torque (1500 to 2500 rpm) isn't very good when you have a lot of overlap. The author is looking at the graphs which start in what would be the mid-range for a street engine. So it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. A race engine with a 5000 rpm stall converter will tolerate a tight LSA cam much better than a muscle car cruising to the Nats with the overdrive engaged and the AC on full blast.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/camshaft-shootout-lobe-separation-angle-tested-explained/

Yeah I used to think about cams the same way but then I started to run into people who had read my race engine articles and used the same cam in their street car and they weren't so happy. A 700 hp pump gas engine sounds like a cool thing to build but if you have a C body and your wife just wants to cruise at 70 mph to a car show in overdrive with the stereo and the AC on then it isn't a good fit. Too much overlap makes the engine run poorly at 1800 rpm even if it has a 4.25 stroke.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that even though this is the race forum a lot of people building street cars post questions here. Some of them don't know that the advice they are getting won't work very well for them. Many times the person making the post doesn't bother to tell us how the car is being driven so people just assume it is a race car. It is a classic failure to communicate.

Personally I think that cams that are too big have turned more people off of hot rodding than anything else. I know of a bunch of backyard mechanic type of guys who bought a big cam for their car then just ran out of patience trying to get the thing to run. Some of those cars got parked, some got sold. Too big of a cam is a real killer when a guy also has a big double pumper carb and a mechanical distributor. That is a nasty combination for an inexperienced mechanic to tune their way out of. A lot of guys just never get it working. The cars are hard to start, take a long time to warm up, belch black smoke and smell bad. Eventually everyone gets tired of it.......

That cam will work okay in a 505 with 3.91 gears and a four speed. How heavy is the car? I assume it is a street strip deal which is why you're using the dual plane? Are you going flat tappet due to budget reasons or something else? I'd probably use a hyd roller for street use and a solid roller for drag race but a solid flat tappet can work if you're working with a tight budget.

. I'm using a solid lifter cam because I love the way they sound with the rockers making noise.

Too much overlap makes the engine run poorly at 1800 rpm even if it has a 4.25 stroke.

This is a decent article but beware of term confusion. The author says tight LSA cams have more low end torque but what he really means is that they have more mid-range torque. The low end torque (1500 to 2500 rpm) isn't very good when you have a lot of overlap. The author is looking at the graphs which start in what would be the mid-range for a street engine. So it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. A race engine with a 5000 rpm stall converter will tolerate a tight LSA cam much better than a muscle car cruising to the Nats with the overdrive engaged and the AC on full blast.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/camshaft-shootout-lobe-separation-angle-tested-explained/

I boil it down to this.......

Put a cam in the motor that makes sense for what you’re doing with the car.

In 95% of the motors people are building, there are compromises made as part of the build, for one reason or another.
The cam is just another component that almost always has some compromises designed into it, to make it fit within some parameter of the build that isn’t quite optimum........ whether from a cost standpoint, compatibility with existing components, or how the motor will be used in the vehicle(and pretty often.... all of the above).

How much power you’re trying to make is almost always several rungs down the ladder in terms of priority when it comes to figuring out what cam to use.