New camshaft
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Cross-Country
Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 87
Likes: 1
New camshaft
Hey all. In the past, I rebuilt my 302 with stock crankshaft, rods, pistons and new bearings. Also, I replaced the stock truck heads with E7TE heads. I put a new camshaft in which had 278° of duration on intake and 290° on exhaust. It didn't do much, but I did notice a little bit of power increase and the power came in a little higher on the rpms. Since then, I've put stainless headers and a fully custom true dual stainless exhaust with cherry bombs. Needless to say, the truck sounds badass!!! But I'm sure I could run a camshaft with more oomph. My only thing is that I want to be able to keep my brake booster. Have yall found a camshaft that brings up the power more but still able to keep enough vacuum to have power brakes? I'm still running the 2150 carb because the 4bbl I have won't seal on the flange and a brand new holley is stupid expensive. I'm not saying I won't spend the money, but just not yet. I'm asking because I've read about duration and lift, but I haven't been able to come up with a relative way to determine a good camshaft. This will not be a work truck. It will only be for fun. There's still stuff I need to do, for example, I want a 5 speed manual to replace the NP435 and a limited slip rear chunk with 3.73:1 gears to replace the stock 3.00:1 in the 9" axle. But that will eventually come around. Just need a little help in the right direction for the camshaft. Thanks
Lead Driver
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 7,016
Likes: 209
From: SoCal
I think the E7TE heads are your choke point right now. The cam would work much better with something like a set of GT40 or GT40P heads, which should be readily available in the salvage yard.
What levels of vacuum are you seeing now? You should try the better heads before going to a more aggressive cam. I found that new cams have gotten stupid expensive as well, but salvage heads should still be cheap.
What levels of vacuum are you seeing now? You should try the better heads before going to a more aggressive cam. I found that new cams have gotten stupid expensive as well, but salvage heads should still be cheap.
Thread Starter
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Cross-Country
Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 87
Likes: 1
I think the E7TE heads are your choke point right now. The cam would work much better with something like a set of GT40 or GT40P heads, which should be readily available in the salvage yard.
What levels of vacuum are you seeing now? You should try the better heads before going to a more aggressive cam. I found that new cams have gotten stupid expensive as well, but salvage heads should still be cheap.
What levels of vacuum are you seeing now? You should try the better heads before going to a more aggressive cam. I found that new cams have gotten stupid expensive as well, but salvage heads should still be cheap.
FTE Legend
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 31,930
Likes: 1,499
From: Ottawa, Ontario
More of a downgrade actually, the E7s have larger combustion chambers which lowered the compression ratio, and the cam you selected likely has more duration and overlap than stock which lowered dynamic compression and moved the powerband up. But with the 302 most gains are at higher rpms anyway which favors more axle gearing so I'd suggest you address that first, 3.0 gears and a 302/5.0 has always been a poor performing combo.
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