My brother has an 95 F150 4X4 with the 351. It is his daily driver, uses it hunting, playing in the mud, and pulling boats and small car trailers. He is digging into the engine to replace the CAM and lifters. I have done many a search on the boards and found a lot of different ideas but thought that I may be able to post about his specific need and see if you all could lend a few suggestions. The truck has just at 100K on it and runs well with just a tad of lifter noise at startup (hence the reason he wants to replace the lifters before he goes out to school in a month). We have replaced most of the exhaust and are going to put on some headers while working on the CAM and lifters.

Thanks in advance for any information you all can give.

 

what are you asking? his 95 is probably Speed Density still so if that is the case his cam selection is very critical. anything with a lobe seperation of 114* or more will run fine. anything less will cause the computer to not operate properly. If your gonna do a cam upgrade the valve springs as well otherwise you may damage the cam. also exhaust headers are great if you buy good quality units like gibson,jba,bbk,bassani. also the Y pipe on our rigs suck from the factory so upgradeing to the bassani Y pipe or having one made would be far better. what you do from that point out really is up to you.

 

Does anyone know of someone with a Crane cam in the 351 for a truck?

When I called Crane they stated that the CAM to use had a 112* lobe, I know that I have seen on these boards and others that people warn away from going under 114* with speed density. I asked the tech at Crane about that and he said it was not an accurate statement, that 112 would work just fine without any issues. I called Comp and their cam is 114* and he said definately do not go under that number for these engines. What do you all think? What brand I go with does not matter too much to me, I have used both in the past but the pricing is quite a bit different. Should I just stick with the Comp?

Thanks,

 

stick with comp, i dont support idiots and the companys they work for. 112* will only work if certain other specs are met and i cant remember what those are. the comp cam 35-255-5 is a great 5.8 cam for speed density.

 

hey guys what's another word for lobe seperation? Lobe Centerline?? I am looking for a camshaft for a 1988 351W and its got to be speed density, so just wondering what to get. Thanks

 

I didn't see it mentioned here so I tought I'd bring it up... 94-97 5.8's are roller cam motors so that will affect your cam selection.
Lifter noise at startup can be traced back to the oil filter. Fram filters are junk and are known to cause this. Simply switching to an FL1A can fix that problem.

 

Sorry to hijack this post.. but what cam do you guys suggest I get for my 95 with the 351. I already have a post on the 87-96 board about it affecting the PCM. I just happened to hop on here and see this. What cam would work for mine and give me a little more low end grunt? Somebody (I think it was you Conanski) who stated to get different rockers. Hows that work?

 

The stamped rockers are supposed to be 1.6:1 ratio but they can vary quite a bit as any mass produced product will. Just replacing them with 1.6 roller rockers can make a difference due to decreased friction and consistent valve geometry on all cylinders.
The rocker ratio is a multiplier for the cam lobe lift. So if your cam has .270" lift, you get .432" lift at the valve with 1.6 rockers, and .464" lift with 1.72 rockers. The valve duration is also longer because it is travelling further. This is a proven bolt-on power adder.

 

So what do you suggest I do? Stick with a new stock cam, and just get different rockers? What kind do you suggest?

 

So as stated elsewhere your '95 is a roller cam motor, so just be aware these cams are about tripple the price of a flat tappet cam. If you decide to stay stock, there's no need to replace it unless it's damaged. The lifters are also about the price of the cam, so replacing the full set can run you $500+ versus $100 for a flat tappet cam and lifter package.
According to a guy in another thread that stock cam should have .422/.448 lift and 256/266 deg duration. The cam I have is the Crane flat tappet 444232 with specs .448/.464 lift and 280/290 duration. This produced big torque but still idles smooth.. I also have the SEFI Mass Air system though. There's no doubt my truck makes more power than my fathers '95 E250 5.8. but his is all stock, and I have a full longtube header exhaust as well. If you were to put 1.72 rockers on a stock '95 cam, you end up with .447/.476 lift and 275/282 duration.. which is awful close to the Crane flat tappet cam. But the roller cam has the advantage of steeper lift curves and much less friction, so they always make more power than a flat tappet cam with similar specs. When I was choosing a cam I plotted a bunch in Desktop Dyno and this Crane cam made the most low RPM torque. It seems that once you go beyond this combo you start trading low rpm torque for higher rpm horspower. The price of the roller cam and lifters is the only reason I did not go that way, just couldn't afford it at the time. If I was doing it again I would buy a roller motor to begin with.
I would definitely get some roller rockers for your motor. I think .500" lift is approaching the mechanical limits of valve lift on stock heads, due to the valve springs binding and piston interferance, and stock heads do not flow any more beyond this point anyway. Speaking of the heads you can make a 50% improvement in flow on the stock E7 heads with a couple hours work with a dremmel and a carbide bit. You need to completely remove the air injection hump from the exhaust port roof and smooth the whole exhaust roof and bowl area. You'll need to disassemble the heads to do this, but it's not hard work. There's an article in one of the Ford performance books that describes this proceedure and gives before and after flowbench measurements.
If you are so inclined, maybe look for some computer dyno software and model some cams. It sure does give you an idea what all the different combinations do to the power band.

 

I just want to comment on the great need to replace the old valve springs with this many miles and a cam uprade in the works. The valve springs on the standard duty truck engines get pretty weak by 100k. Failure to adress this could have dire consequences.

 

P51D- I had planned on taking the heads off and shipping them off to be worked on. I'm not the best at replacing valves and what not so I figure I'd let someone else do it right.