440 Truck Camshaft

I'm building a 67 440 to put in my pickup and curious as to what cam I should go with. The engine has been bored .020, I'm using a flat top piston with .991 comp height and 452 heads. The block and head mating surfaces have not been cut. Best I can figure is somewhere around 9.3 compression using .020 steel head gaskets. Trans is a 727 with factory convertor, not really sure what it stalls at.
It's going in a 77 D100 swb, 3.23 gears and 28 inch tall tires. The truck weighs 4100lbs with me in it. What say you.

Melling P/N mtd-2

I would say you are looking for low/mid range power band correct? If so choose the cam accordingly. What other engine mods?

Depends on weather you want your truck to run like truck or a car. I have a 77 360 with X heads and a 480 lift cam in my 78 D100 swb. Runs more like a muscle car than an old truck but that is what I wanted. I don't tow or haul heavy loads. I do a couple burnouts every so often though.
So what is your liking?

You could do worse than the small summit cam.

something like this would probably work good
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-k6400/make/chrysler

the summit 6400 is close to duplicating a stock magnum. the summit cam has 112lsa vs 115lsa for the magnum. i think the magnum has a little more seat timing in part due to the long closing ramps. either would be good choices but the 6400 may be the only one of the two available. i put a 6400 in a 383 once with no regrets.

Is this a play toy or a working truck? If compression truly is 9.3 to one pick carefully so you don't build a detonation prone monster. Since you mentioned block has not been decked I am going to bet you don't have nearly the compression you think though. Those pistons will be way down in the bore.

Just running the numbers quick for uncut parts(pistons down the hole .086”, 88cc heads)....... I come up with 8.8:1.

Manifolds or headers?

I’ll say a stock hp muscle era grind is the outer limits. Smaller with manifolds, closer to it with headers.

The truck has headers and dual exhaust. Pistons are .070 in the bore. I use the truck for cruising mostly, with an occasional dump or scrap run. I am not opposed to a few burnouts per year.

These engines were always ‘under cammed’...

My mates 66 440 was totally stock with 452 heads and a 484 sixpack DC camshaft, went like a scalded cat...

I would recommend one step down and go with the 474...

Back in the day we would buy the biggest cams we could find!

Hughes engines are just going with the BIG cam theory now, 40 years after we did lol...

Big Is Best, don’t starve the beast...

I took a cam out of a 440 motorhome engine and it was 390 lift.
The guy who ran the MH said, “it wouldn’t get out of its own way” lol...

Compcams 270 I think they call it now?

That’s a hipo 440 cam with 270 duration.

the mopar "284-.484" cam would be a definite no-no. a D.C. sixpak cam is the same as a stock 4bbl magnum cam as far as valve timing and lift and i'd say ok to that. the biggest problem i have with any of the small comp cams hydraulics is the 110lsa and 4 degrees advance no matter what flavor you buy. the 268/276 comp cams may be ok but i'd want 112lsa and no advance ground into it for starters. the summit 6401 surprisingly does have fairly good low and mid-range torque considering it's definitely more cam than a stock cam. i'm at a point in life where i lean more and more towards the gentler cams for something to drive. i've thought about having a comp cams cam ground with the 276/.464 lobe on 112lsa -113lsa to replace the mopar 272/.455 (also thought about a 276/284 @ 112lsa for a street performance cam). howards lists the intake lobe of the summit 6401 so a single pattern cam could be ground (this would be something like 280@.006", 224@,050", 133@.200" lift and .466 lift) on a 112lsa and make a nice driver.

if it is below 9.5 comp ratio- on my junk I go with Hughes steamroller or whiplash cams.

my 88-D100 with a bone stock 78 MH 440 with the Hughes 440 whiplash cam is awesome! very choppy but smooths out about1800-2000 rpm for the street truck. recurve dist.- fatten up the 650DP with a stock MH converter -any of my gears 3.91-3.23-2.76 turning a 29x15x15 M/T running the 2.76 gear at the moment for longer cruzing. sounds like a Funny Car cruz like a Chrysler New Yorker on the streets. idles along in 3rd gear 1200 rpm @ 25 mph in town choppin wood as they say.

I run 2 Hughes "steamroller" roller cams in 318s and 1 "whiplash" roller cam 318 and 1 440-whiplash flat tappet cam all in trucks on the street. they all work well with low comp stock everything as advertised. fatten up the carb and recurve the dist with a set of 925B springs has been all that was needed with them.

I have had the one SB roller cam in a few engines and over 200,000 miles on it now not one problem with them.

got about 27,000 miles of fun on my flat tappet whiplash cam now.

I am sure there are better faster cams out there but on lopo engines they work really well in traffic.

...while I haven't had it out on the main streets yet to see how well it does, the Engine Pro MC1787 is the cam I put in my 440 - it was what came in the engine master rebuild kit ordered from the machine shop). It idles smooth, and from the few hours it's been running /driving around the property it seems to have loads of torque. My truck was built to be a multi-purpose camping/rock-crawling rig that is also 100% streetable - it rolls on 40" Toyos with 5.38 gears. I found the engine buried deep inside a '79 Winnebago Motorcoach - it is a 440-3 block with standard 452 heads, and got a standard 'RV' rebuild with ~9-1 compression.

Engine Pro MC1787, hydraulic flat tappet
- Duration @ .050 Intake 204 Exhaust 214, Advanced Duration Intake 278 Exhaust 288; Valve Lift .420 Exhaust .443
- Lobe Sep. Intake 107 Exhaust 117; Power range 1500-4000; Idle: Smooth
- Comment: Torque Cam strong low to mid range torque and pulling power.

- Sam

Thanks for all the replies. Years ago I had another 67 440 with the same pistons, heads and factory intake. It was bored .040 and I used factory HP exhaust manifolds. I ran the Mopar 274/474 cam. I had it in a Duster with 3.91 gears and factory high stall convertor. That car was fun to drive! I suppose the Summit cam would work for what I want. I very rarely tow anything with the truck and the 6401 cam doesn't sound like it would be too lumpy anyway. Also, I have a new one sitting on the shelf, that I bought for another project and never used is a plus.

Thats the melling mtd-2

put that 6401 in it if you have it. they have a smooth idle and good torque; mimics a crane hmv278. you could do worse.

Any cam around 450 lift and 260 duration will work.

But the LSA can have a huge affect on vacuum and idle characteristics of course!

We checked a lot of cams and you rarely get ‘more’ cam than less it seems...

If you buy a stockish 440 cam it will run good, but come the day you meet an F100 or Chev truck.

You will wish you had the 474 lol...

You want ‘bub, dee, blab’ not blah, blah, blah...

The standard Magnum Cam run good on the detuned engines since 72 ( is the cam on 400Magnum engines and lates 440 Magnums ) with 8:1 CR and open chamber heads. With given specs I think one step higher of the Magnum Cam will be fine. Crower 267 HDP maybe ?

I have a stock 75 440 truck motor in my 72 Satellite. I put in a cam with .454 lift and around 280*. About the same as a factory 1970 440HP cam. Figure the motor is around 7.5-8 CR. With shorty headers, 3310 Holley and aluminum low rise intake it runs pretty dang good.

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That's the melling mtd-2

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cool - that's what the engine kit was supposed to come with, but the box said 'Engine Pro' - all good. Interesting fun fact - I sent the cam that was in my RV 440 cam to Crower to have it measured and it was nearly identical to the mtd-2/MC1787 - I probably could have run it and it would have been just fine - I have the cam card somewhere if anyone wants the actual numbers...

if you guys look around at camshafts, especially second tier, you'll notice the same profiles popping up for a lot of different engines. the melling cam profile is available for about all makes. it's edelborocks performer series and the summit 6400 and 6401 profiles can be had in chevy's , olds, pontiac, etc. i think you can even find some of these lobes in howards master lobe catalog. i read a few years ago that harvey crane sold or marketed some of his profiles to first and second tier grinders and if you could find an old crane master lobe catalog you'll his stuff popping up today. i like those old crane lobes because they don't break and are easy on parts. back in the day i had a favorite street cam; a crower 201hj. don't hear anything about it today but pretty sure it was one of those "marketed" crane lobes. crower called it 284/.480 lift. pretty sure that lobe was a crane h-228/3200. i believe howards has that lobe in their master catalog. i believe the summit 6401 is a crane 280hp/290hp. the 6400 cam is the same as the old wolverine cam which i believe was crane's second tier line. i wish crane was back in business.

a men harvey crane was waaay ahead of others !


wish i could buy the 278 for a small block project i am building now .

comp bought crane last i herd ?