MAKING POWER WITH LOW LIFT FT CAM

Without spending a ton of $ on a build, best way to make big HP naturally?
Keep it simple with a total car weight of 3300-3400 lbs. SB or BB. Easily driven on the street, yet with some 10.5 slicks be in the realm of 11.0-11.5. I saw a few times that Pitts/racer's son was running mid-low 10's with a factory parts 360. If I recall properly that cam was @.530? That's a lower spring rate and easy on the street. Probably someone has also done this with a stock stroke BB. What's a good formula for either?

This is a different angle to consider in your quest to find the Colonel's secret 11 herbs and spices.

Do you want to go fast or not? Buy the parts that suit either of those answers.

1. Good heads are always the answer.

2. Spend a sizable sum on a very, very good, properly spec'ed torque converter from a shop that is known and trusted. If you are handicapping yourself from the start with a mild engine with a small cam, don't further hobble the combination with an el-cheapo 11" 2200 stall converter(for example)..."because it's a street car"... The car doesn't know if it is the street or the track.



I can tell you from experience that a tight A-1 8" converter drives fantastic on the street behind a 620hp 505" in a not featherweight B-body with nearly zero slop/mush and flashes to 4800 lightning fast. Very fun.

.02

Matt’s 360 has a .600 lift roller in it now that I bought on Moparts for 100 dollars. It’s gone 6.54 several times which should be 10.20-10.30’s at 3200 pounds.

Gear, converter, CR, fuel octane, hydraulic/solid, RPM expected, exhaust system, ... ??? Lots of variables you haven't mentioned.

Dont forget that Dana 60!

My .520 lift 440 B body has gone 10.71 . This is a pump gas 10.75:1 motor
Top end head choice is important , but what previous guys noted all helps . Nothing too special in mine
Daily driver

Tex

FWIW, my 440's last incarnation while still using ported OEM iron heads had a Racer Brown .520" SFT, although I did use 1.6s on the intakes. Even if I'd gone back to 1.5s on I & E, it would have still been a low 11-sec pump-gas street car at 3700#s.

I did go 11 teens with a 509 cam and cleaned up Source heads . Same bottom end as above

Tex

The more vertical the stem angle, the more intake lift matters (OEM B/RB 15°, LA 18°) to get the valve head away from the cylinder wall. A 1.6 (or more) rocker will help, but you can also relieve the chamber wall back around the valve pocket in the head.
Some ideas on my site here: http://victorylibrary.com/mopar/chamber-tech.htm

Not sure I under stand the question? The .520 cam that your talking about is no where near mild. I use them and they run circles around many grinds but they are not easy on parts. As far as running those numbers we often use hyd grinds with 3.73 gears in 10 to 1 all iron sb mopars that get street driven many miles on 91 octane pump gas.These are not big HP deals just mild stuff. Not tricks needed for that application.A big block is overkill IMO.

Try Isky Mega cams. Good selection and makes good power. I've used a couple in 451 low decks and 440's. Favorite in hyd. 525 lift 256 duration.

Those mega cams are all hydraulic aren't they? I've never seen a mega cam for solid lifters, but there is a bunch I haven't seen.

Yes, I checked their website. They have them in solid and I think I'll try one in my next street car.

Simple - more duration, more converter flash, more rpm

I’ll agree with all the above except for more rpm. Jim at Racer Brown loved when I called for cams as I would give him an exact number on stall and head flow test numbers at every .050 instead of .100 lift. My 408 on BP 93 Ran 9.80’s shifting at 6400 rpm with one of Jim’s tweaked .520 lift cams. This was a Econo W2 headed combo that I did some mild porting work to. Heck they still had the 3/8 inch 2.02 valves in them.

Crazy RPM is the main reason I’ve stayed away from building a W8 or W9 combo. They are fine for the test n tuners or guys that race 2-5 times a year. I would hate to see the price tag on some of these builds and their maintenance costs. I lean towards plain simple budget builds without the tricks and gadgets

What cam are you referring to? I didn't see the OP mention one specifically, so I'm a bit confused... as usual.

If you're referring the Racer Brown ST-21 I used to run, I know that's not the easiest on the valve train; from my experience it did NOT like to RPM much past 6300 before the valve train would float so bad it almost felt like it hit a rev limiter.

Don't you hate to read remarks and reviews about this or that engine "loves to rev"? Generally the author is completely confused between basic design and low flywheel weight.
As Widmer says, "RPM means 'ruins people's motors'".

What does that duster weigh? more of a curious Question.

back then 2800 pounds. 2860 now as I keep making it racer friendly.

I think many discount what Jim at RB does if you just call him. He's a sharp dude and he doesn't do a lot of BS on trick of the week junk. It took a ton of phone time, flow sheets and some serious consideration of valve job shape and angles before he decided on a lobe/rocker ratio for me and it was worth it.

You can always add some stroke length to your engine combo to keep RPM down to a reasonable level. Today, valve train, lobe design and spring technology makes its pretty easy to turn something 8k and still have some decent reliability.

Is the extra 60 pounds to make the car more racer friendly, or is it because the driver is more dinner friendly?? Asking for a friend. He says the same thing. So I'm looking for a third party to verify.

TIA.

Is the extra 60 pounds to make the car more racer friendly, or is it because the driver is more dinner friendly?? Asking for a friend. He says the same thing. So I'm looking for a third party to verify.

TIA. [/quote]




LOL I kinda walked into to one but BOTH. I put steel doors and wind up windows on my Duster several year ago and to load and unload the car I climb out the window. A couple of weeks ago after two loads of gravel I could finally get it in my shop. I will be hopefully going to the gym this week because its getting to be tough squeezing my belly through the window.