Going to pick up a 351w out of a 96 e150 tomorrow, i will be putting this engine in a 78 F100
Needing cam ideas, links to videos of you have them, looking at doing a edelbrock performer intake and holly 650, keeping the serpentine system

looking for more low end power, and planning on a stall converter
plus would like to have lots of chop

any of the "alphabet cams" do that? e303 x303?

and any brand recommendations? i will make a post in my build thread on breaking in a new cam and lifter set, i really dont want to spend that much on a cam and wipe it.

Reason why i ask is because i dont know what the stock rockers can take and what clearances are with these cams, don't need a valve in the piston of my new engine.

thank you much
-Aaron

 

Hi 78Fords!Considering the cam has such critical importance to the engines performance and life, to me it makes sense to use a cam grinder (not sales staff reading a script) who will talk with you directly- even modify the cam grind to fit your needs even better and to address the possibility of cam lobe failure with the new oils. When it comes to making an engine breathe, there are so many variables including elevation, humidity, fuel blends/available octane, most cam mfgs will vary a "core grind pattern" to match the external impactors in addition to the internal impactors- which today IMHO makes the different between and engine that runs well, to one that just seems to run a little bit better, smoother and gets better mileage than expected. With regards to price...the difference is nil- especially considering its cheap insurance to know exactly who is machining such a critical part for your engine. And remember, advertized lift/duration/lobe separation is just that- advertized and not the specific grind including ramp profile that is used on the cam. I highly recommend Iskenderian (who I personally know to this day physically tests/inspects every single valve spring before it leaves the shop) & Crower & Chet Herbert & Lunati...all are family owned, been grinding cams for decades, and both will even re-grind your oem cam if possible- saving you even more $. It is also important to purchase a cam kit...which would include everything that particular cam requires and yes, the cam grinder will tell you if the oem rockers arm are adequate...….

I would IMHO avoid Comp Cams like the plague..... a mass production (McDonald's type) company which - seems to have experience more cam lobe failures than most and places the blame on the low ZDDP in the oils...then experiences valve spring failure, and it just does a cycle. With regards to their cams billets, I highly suspect that they are also using Chinese & they do not include Parkerizing their cams unless you want to pay extra for it (Parkerizing is the final step and a crucial step to help break the cam in- a heated acid bath that microscopically etches the metal surface and adds a very thin layer of graphite coating which allows the cam lube to hang onto and penetrate into the cam surface during cam break in) unless you specifically request and pay additional money for it. This is a not so unusual posting about Comp and their components…..

http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vi...-camshaft.html

 

That motor's a roller block, so nothing to worry about on cam breakin. Drop the roller lifters in oil and drop them in their bores, install the hold down hardware and FORGETABOUTIT !! The stock cam in it has tons of bottomend, but has no lope you're looking for. The B303 has a healthy lope in a 302, never ran one in a 351. The only other thing to look at is new pushrods if it's got more'n 100K miles on it. The roller pushrods don't rotate, so the upper ends tend to wear to a wedge shape over time. I would also replace the stock rockers with new 1.7 full roller pedestal rockers to eliminate the friction in the fulcrums. I would also go with an RPM intake over the Performer. The RPM works as well in the lower rpms, but gives it more room to breathe on top.

 

There's another more important reason for Parkerizing the lobe, and that's to give them traction on the lifter bottoms during breakin to set them in motion to rotate in their bores.

 

Of course... the OP's motor has a roller cam in it so these issues related to oil and breakin won't apply

 

I didn't think there was much of a break in, I am considering one of the Ford performance cams, I know springs are needed, but what I should have asked is are there any cams in the that 303 series that will have valve clearance issues?

 

If you use aftermarket heads with bigger valves on stock bottom end... yes the alphabet cams have enough duration to get into P-V clearance issues.

 

The B cam is fine with stock pistons, even with 1.7 rockers. I've run it on a stock 302 roller short block with 1.7 rockers. I Think the E cam is too, seems I recall the specs are pretty conservative. The X, F and Z's lifts are probably too much for stock heads

 

That's what I have found as well, most guys put the smaller alphabet cams in their broncos on 30s.

 

I ran it in an 89 Ranger with a Toploader 4 speed and 3.73 rear on 275/60-15 tires. Wicked little motor with ported E7 heads and a Ford A321 intake/Holley 650DP

 

I don't think you need to be conconcerned about PTV clearance. I'm running TFS 11R heads with a TFS Track Max cam on a stock shortblock - no problems.

Of course I'd still recommend checking.

 

how would one check for clearance? also that is a sweet looking lightning in your sig pic. that's a goal for me right there.

 

There's a lot of ways to check it, the simple way with just some playdoe to the better way with a dial indicator, degree wheel and light checking springs. Either way will work. Too much to post here,try YouTube, I'm sure there's something on there.

Thanks,for the truck comment.

B

 

I personally would never run a letter cam. They were fine in their day, but cam tech has come a long ways. To start, theyre a single pattern cam, majority of ford heads enjoy a nice increase from a split pattern that offers more exhaust duration(the exception being early 385 heads and clevland heads). I would look at the comp xe line, or lunati voodoo as they both offer nice split duration cams. Ill be blunt, i couldnt disagree more with beechkid. Comp is the single largest cam manufacturer out there, statistically they would have the most failures, but the margin of failure is no different than any other manufacturer that ive found. Secondly, with a roller cam, the zddp and wiped lobe issue is basically a non-issue. As far as a custom cam, no cam manufacturer is going to grind a custom cam for an otherwise stock engine. That is literally WHY they have "off-the-shelf" cams. These are cams that work well for common engine combinations. In order to have a custom cam that actually was tailored to the engine you would need to know EXACTLY a multitude of obscure engine measurements and vehicle specs.

Back on point, if youre going to be towing with your f100 i would stay on the conservative end of cam and converter, something like 264/270 adv duration. If youre just wanting a nice all around cam for street driving, i would look at something like a xe276hr, which would work very nice with a 2k converter, pull to around 6k, and have a bit of chop at idle. If you want something a bit more go fast oriented, something in the 280/290 adv duration would still work ok, but will be piggy below 2-2500, and wouldnt really suit your stock E7TE's or lowish compression, but it would sound good. This would be a good cam if you intend to put some aftermarket heads on down the road. If you really want big cam sound, but dont want to give up (much) drivability, the thumper line of cams is something you can look at. I dont have much experience with them. The high exhaust duration gives them a very tough idle, doesnt give up much power overall, and actually work fairly well with stock ford restrictive exhaust ports. You will want to match your converter to the cam you choose, and match the cam to the gearing and compression of the engine. The larger the cam, the more gear, converter, and compression it demands.

My advice would be to jump on summit and just do some browsing. You can search by rpm range and/or intended function to narrow down results and get a better idea of what you want / need.

Lastly, i would ditch the performer for a performer rpm or similar (wieand speed warrior). Whether air gap or not. The performer is basically a stock 2bbl intake with a 4bbl flange, the performer rpm and wieand speed warrior are both exceptional intakes in the 1500-6500 range. To top off, i would run a 650-670cfm carburetor, i personally would look at a 4160 or street avenger, but the thunder series afb's are an alternative.

 

IMHO: I agree!!!!


i couldnt disagree more with beechkid. Comp is the single largest cam manufacturer out there, statistically they would have the most failures, but the margin of failure is no different than any other manufacturer that ive found.

IMHO: to start with, the owner/prez/ceo of Comp Cams is an attorney by profession.IMHO- If the cam is cut on Comps 8620 core and has a copper colored base to it, you should be OK. If it looks like a standard silver / metal camshaft all throughout you probably have one of their cheaper 5150 cores that won't last 20K miles before wiping out and failing. The 8620 cores run $400+.

With regards to QA...….

By SAE standards, 1% failure rate is unacceptable in US production standards (this is also ISO, Sigma, TQM, TPM, I could go on).....the US standard is 1% internal (not external ie customer), Chinese standard for example is 15% failure rate (internal). This does not nor should be implied to say that this should mean there should be no failure at the customer level, that is just not realistic as everyone would agree. But let's assume that Comp's 1% failure rate in the marketplace is acceptable, by comparison this would mean every day 100,000 prescriptions would be incorrectly delivered to customers (statistics provided by FDA & Harvard).......would this be acceptable to anyone- of course not. Per both GM & Ford, if each production run of any single vehicle series was built 99% to standard (ie 1% failure rate @ market/consumer deliverable), no less than each vehicle would have on average 15 defect's (published data available). Now before anyone says it, I will- yeah, we all know of certain vehicles that everyone considered "lemons" and everyone has known more than one person who bought one of these that had at least 15 defects of more. In summary, consumer's simply do not accept 1% failure rate in any significance of large scale consumer population.

Therefor, if correctly stated by Comp as such, this validates at least from & of Comps product, their production quality risk management practices are shifted from manufacturing internal controls onto the consumer. Again, the family owned cam grinders do not function under this model & could not remain in business....I can personally attest that both Isky & Crower do not prescribe to this (Comp's) model- as fyi, Isky checks/inspects/test every single valve spring before it is shipped to the customer (whether its VascoJet or whomever).....that's simply a QA step that again does everything humanly possible to ensure customer satisfaction. High/mass production facilities count every single penny and in essence do a "risk assessment" of what the likely hood of failure is and who is to accept fault, this risk assessment includes "how many customers will get upset and leave", unfortunite but true and built in specifically (typically) in writing (in many cases, companies that are required to submit SEC filings are required by federal law/regs to produce such a document and it must be review annually and signed by the CEO/President).

The reference that you can find by comparative analysis, similar QA complaints on other Cam grinders, I searched......with Comp I found 2 full pages (threads), Crower 3 threads (one of which was a result of using oem valve springs with a new cam- that's just not real bright as I'm sure everyone will agree) the other 2 threads Crower took care of the customer and have had no problems, 1 on Isky- turned out not to be an Isky cam but a "Copy-cat" brand that was supposed to be the same as the Isky #####, they had spring bind and busted up their engine pretty bad- of course, that should always be checked for during assembly- I'm sure Comp has similar type reasons for claim failure, but the ratio of complaint is easily 300 to 1 from my simple google search (which of course has extreme variability)

Comp's statement, assuming it clearly represents the company's position on QA, has verified to myself why I have not, nor will ever recommend nor ever use their products in any of my vehicles- they have affirmed my thoughts & suspicions.

To validate this point further as to the “McDonald’s environment” of which operate:

Tech Support Issue:

Fuel Pump Rebuild

Valvetrain Failure:


Classic Cam Failure:

http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/more...ure-48577.html

Cam Lobe Fracturing:

http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/sh...d.php?t=458553

Cam Failure:

http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=121078

FAIL Comp cams trunion- Rockwell hardness low:

http://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/...n-upgrade.html

2nd Cam Failure:

http://www.performanceboats.com/gn7-...p-failure.html

Major problems with Comp Cams hydraulic roller lifters :

Major problems with Comp Cams hydraulic roller lifters

COMP CAMS FAIL (endless)

http://truestreetcars.com/forums/gen...cams-fail.html

Comp Cams Ultra Gold Aluminum Roller Rocker Failure

http://www.ls1gto.com/forums/showthread.php?t=388981

Comp Cams 918 spring failures

http://www.camaroz28.com/forums/ls1-...ilures-526319/

Cam Failure:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=389981