I'm in the process of freshening up a 302 for my truck and was wanting yalls opinion on Howards cams. Was looking at the Comp 260h originally but keep reading horror stories about comp so was looking into other options. I looked into the Edelbrock 2122 also before i stumbled on this cam from howards. Was thinking about trying the HRCCL210931-10. It's a 215@.50 with .475 lift int/ex. Engine is going in a truck, it's basically a stock rebuild with a edelbrock performer and a 650 edelbrock carb. Truck is a 78 f150 shortbed 4x4 4 speed np435 3.73 gears 31" tires. Engine has flat top pistons and d80e heads. I've read these heads are not the most desirable but they have been gone through and what I have. Haven't decided on of in going to try to use headers yet, but it will have a free flowing exhaust. I'm not wanting to go with a roller cam, it's not in the budget. just something a little better than factory. Im not looking to try and move the earth, just a nice daily driver that'll run me to town on pump gas. Just wondering what yalls opinions were on these. If you have any other recommendations I'd like to hear them. I realize this question gets asked alot, but I've only found a handful of posts that mention a Howards cam.

 

Howard has some good designs but I think that 215 @ .050 is too much duration for the application. I'd keep it down under 210 on a 108 lobe separation.

From what I've seen sometimes flat tappet cams are not ground very well. The tapers and the finished can be inconsistent and this can hurt reliability. A rough finish with a lot of chatter can be hidden from view with a heavy Parkerizing after grinding.

week or two ago I reground an aftermarket cam for a small block Chevy. On this engine all of the lobes are supposed to be ground with taper high to the right(high toward the rear of the engine) but on this cam the lobes were not ground that way. They were not high to the left either but high in the middle by about .003! The cam had been run very little and had not managed to go flat yet but that had to just be a matter of time. I turned it into a solid lifter with .002 total taper on all of the lobes. With reasonable spring loads and proper break in it should be just fine.

 

I would recommend Howards cams. I called the tech line for recommendations on a 302 and 351W build. Installed using their lifters, recommended assembly lube, oil additive and break in oil. No problems with break in. 302 in a T bucket and 351 installed in 55F100.
I used Edelbrock E street heads on both engines. Made more sense at the time than rebuilding the stock heads.

 

Appreciate the responses guys! I'll look into one of their cams in that range. I found their cl212161-11 is 209@.050 on a 107. Its .448 int/ex. That may be more suited to what I'm building you think? While looking for a cam less than 210@ .050 like you suggested i ran across a Isky in that range also. Its their cl381256262 its .450 int, .445 ex. Its 202 int/208 ex @.050 on a 110. The isky does say 9.5:1 compression, and I know my setup doubtful will have that much with the d8 heads

 

The things you have to consider are that you've got a small low compression engine. Torque comes primarily from displacement and you've only got 302 cubic inches. Lower compression ratios also reduce cylinder pressures and the torque. What the camshaft has to do in this situation is to maximize the cylinder pressures at the engine speeds that you intend to use. This means shortening up on the duration and tightening up on the lobe separation. Closing the intake early to gain low speed cylinder pressure and dumping it later to get more out of the power stroke can help a ton.

I built quite a few 289's for a local Mustang shop with flat tappet hydraulic cams and I nearly always used a cam that was 205 @ .050 on 108 which worked very well. I was always worried about someone having the engine in a car with a 5 speed transmission and having it want to chug-a-lug in overdrive at lower speeds. That was never a problem a larger cam say 215 @ .050 might have been a problem at 2000rpm.

I would also take a look at the old Sealed Power 1008R(I think) cam. That's 190 and 202 @ .050 on 108. That cam super mild but could work very well in the application. It wont sound like much and it'll be a smooth idler but it will make some good torque. Those were ground by Engine Power so other companies sell the exact same cam as their own.

 

Appreciate the info!! I'll look into that cam a little more as well. As far as idle I'm not as concerned with the "chop" as much as I am driveability and something that's going to work well with what I'm building. My other major concern was finding a quality flat-tappet cam in 2025. I read so many stories about failures makes a guy nervous ya know. That's one reason I asked about the Howards in the first place, for some reason seemed like what information i found really wasn't related to 302s at all, and if it was it was for a build that's way more aggressive than mine.

 

Howard's grinds a nice cam from what I've seen.

Everyone wants to blame something for the problems that people have been having with flat tappet cams. Soft cores, bad lifters, excessive spring loads etc but I think a lot of the problems are not just caused by one thing being wrong. A lot of cams are not ground with enough taper for the application. Many oem and stock replacement cams will only have about .001 total taper on a lobe that's about 1/2 inch wide. This is probably ok with a stock cam profile and very low spring loads. As the profile becomes more aggressive it really needs more taper than that to encourage lifter rotation.

I just got my Rockwell hardness tester up and running and I've been testing all sorts of stuff just for fun. The other night I tested some lifters, tool steel ones from Trend checked at 62C on my machine as did some reground ones from Morel. A hydraulic(probably a Johnson) that had run in my 460 for about 20 years, 58. An old factory GM lifter with the hard wafer, between 63 and 64C.

Cams are tougher to test but they should check around 50 to 55C or so from my understanding. The lifter needs to be at least a few points harder than the cam for it to work. I would assume that if the cam was harder than the lifter it would also be ok but they never should be the same hardness.

Here at the shop I've got a brand new set of Sealed Power hydraulic lifters Hecho En China. I'm going to test a few of them just too see and also measure the crowns.

 

Appreciate the info! I guess checking the taper is something I should do before I install. This is something I can check with a mic? I have a digital caliper as well if that would do the trick. I'm curious about the hardness of the Chinese lifters as well, definitely post what you find. Wonder how they're going to compare to the lifters you checked that were 20 years old?

 

Scotty J (of RHP and Parkland Auto Machine fame) over at the 460Ford forums did hardness testing of various manufacturer lifters, and the results were eye-opening! Worth the look... https://www.460ford.com/threads/cams...esting.159964/ Scroll down that thread to post # 10 or so for the latest updates.

 

Just read through that link you posted. I did not expect there to be that much of a difference in the lifters.

 

Also I think i found that old sealed power cam under a melling part number 24108. Only real difference is it's a 110 lsa vs the 108 lsa of the sealed power. This is comparing them on summit racings website. It doesn't show many specs of the sealed power cam, just list it as unavailable. I'm more than willing to give this cam a try if yall think it'll work good for my application. I also appreciate all the advice and help thus far.

 

Ah just realized that's for a 351m...I was to busy looking at the lift/ duration. I hit "check fit" and 351m popped up.... kinda made me laugh, got all excited there for a second

: edit: so i think summits website is wrong, I looked at it again a little more closely and it shows this cam fitting all the 351's, which i didn't think is right. So i checked another site and it shows it for a 302. That's my bad, I should've looked more closely

 

Good call to avoid comp... Howard, Isky, Crower are all very good cam grinders and IMHO, it's really best to contact them direct so they can advise you specifically on what grind to get for your app.... after all, the advertised spec is just that and not the specific profile that is used to grind the cam. If Howard is close to you location wise, go with them.

 

This evening I tested one of the made in China Sealed Power lifters and it measured 61C on my tester checking the face in 3 places. So much for it being "soft". I didn't have time to measure the amount of crown. About the only problem that I could see was that it sure has a big chamfer around the edge, way more than necessary. This reduces the effective diameter of the lifter face so if the profile is getting within about .020 of the edge it might cause trouble.

 

That's a different outcome than what I was expecting with those lifters.