I have a 400 that isn't my daily driver, I plan on doing a rebuild with some performace items, but I use it in town every now and then, and it will see a goooood bit of mudding. I want some good get up and go and still reasonable gas milage out of my 400.

I was thinking of a cam around .524/ .524 lift(give or take a little) and around 272/ 272 Advertised Duration. I saw summit has their own brand not as agressive as .524/.524 lift, but close and was wondering if anyone has any thoughts about their products, or should I get crane, comp cams or somthing along those lines. I'm really not sure about what lift or duration I should go with, and any help will be appretiated.

Thanks in advance,
-Matt

 

i have two crane cams and i like them alot, no problems....

i also have an edelbrock cam that is hgih performance and i dont like it, i LOVE it, so its up to you

Matt

 

I just don't know if all the companys are all basically good(?) and I would like everyones opinions on a good cam.

I will be getting a new intake manifold and a 4v carb around 650cfm or so, headers, and daul exhaust, and I want a cam and I would like to do all the work at the same time.

 

My experience with both the 351m and 400 which spans about 15yrs has included quite a variety of cams from quite a few different manufactures. They include crane, crower, and comp.At present im running a full roller valve train and i love it but its very expensive. With that being said, if you are staying with the stock compression ,ie no fancy pistons i would not get to carried away with the cam,you will always be dissagpointed by using too large of cam than if you err on the conservative side. The camshaft is once instance where bigger is not better when building a street engine,only good for bench racing lol. Late closing intake events bleed off valuable cylinder pressure and sacrifice low end torque ( what you need ina truck) for high rpm Hp. A general rule is more compression more cam, larger engine more cam. I have found that the matching cam for the edelbrock performer is a good piece and will give the needed torque required in a heavy vehicle.What i recommend to people who ask is to consider the whole package,that meaning the weight of you vehicle,the gearing, tire size ,useable rpm range ( what you would actually use,typically 1000-5000 rpm, and torque converter.Also dont be shy, call the cam help line at comp they will ask you all this so have the info at hand and they will put you in the ball park. Camshafts are very complex pieces and often misunderstood and deserve alot of attention before you make you final decision.Hope this shed a little light for you

 

I've thought about changing compression, but don't know what's needed to do so, thanks for the info so far, it explains a good bit, but could you shed a little more light towards compresion?

Thanks for the help,
-Matt

 

Basically what it comes down to is cylinder pressure,more compression = more cylinder pressure, too much and you experience detonation, which is bad. a lot of things affect detonation, mostly imho the combustion chamber design. Remeber this engine is some 20 plus yrs old = old technology.it is prone to detontation because of the chambers large size/mixture burn time.The latest trend is the australian 2v cylinder head which has a small chamber and a quench pad, the open chamber has no quench at all. these heads allow you to have a quench and the tighter your quench distance the more turbulence on compression along with the smaller combustion chamber which requires less time to burn the mixture , which helps stave off detonation. If you are considering raising the compression check out tim meyers site http://www.tmeyerinc.com/400Fordpistons.htm . Also do some research on dynamic compression which is the actual running compression of an engine.This can get very complicated for the uninitiated and you may just decide to use the search method in the forum to see what others have tried and by listening to some of the other experienced engine builders in this forum. You can never learn too much so read all you can. btw tim has a great thing goin for us die hard ford 400 guys. he has been having special pistons made just for this motor to adress the lack of a decent aftermarket piston.. Also the aussie heads show up on ebay quite a bit and are imho worth it if it is in you budget.

 

If I put Clevland heads, would that be the start of changging my compression? Or is more needed.

 

they have to be australian clevland heads but yes that would bump up ur compression. there has been many debates on weather or not it is to much for pump gas. but if u do that and get the pistins from tim myer he can custom dish the pistons for ne compression u want.

 

The aus heads alone are of no real value other than raising compression if you dont go with the custom pistons . The 400 piston is .060 to .065 down in the bore which is to much to take advantage of the quench effect. Ideally 0 deck height with a .040 head gasket will give you good turbulence. The pistons tim sells have a higher deck height so you dont have to machine the block to get the 0 deck clearnace but do require a dish be machined to get the desired compression ratio.

 

272 degrees duration is too much cam for your stated goals. You want about 9.0:1 CR and about 260 degrees duration. The Comp cams 255DEH is popular for your application.
Recent announcements of compatible 2V Aluminum heads have improved the available options for building these motors. These are not much more expensive than cast iron Aussie heads by the time you have them completly refurbished. The aluminum heads along with Tim Meyer's zero deck pistons, dished for 9.5:1 and a full roller valve train with a 260HR or similar cam is the ticket to great performance.

 

who sells these alum 2v heads???

 

Here are a couple of websites.

http://www.airflowdynamics.com.au/
http;//www.chiheads.com

Also Edelbrock has announced 2V Cleveland heads. They are more expensive than the Aussie offerings and early data says that they don't flow as well.