About darned time...

Some will recall my stroke of bad luck in "wiping" a cam lobe near flat on my fresh cylinder head, ported intake and longtube header swapped engine. I got the mods completed and when I took it to dyno, the car popped, backfired and whatever else from 3300 to 5000 rpm's, making the day a total waste. Even with only 7-1/2 cylinders it still made 239rwhp @ 3900 rpms and 359rwtq @ 3300 rpms, lol...

anyway...

I finally got the car back together with it's new, and still very mild, flat tappet camshaft. I couldn't be happier with my choice. After building and owning several much quicker cars, I didn't want any low rpm driveability issues (which is why I wanted to keep stock cam originally). I chose one with very mild specs IMO.

Lift w/1.6 rockers:
Intake @ valve .448"
Exhaust @ valve .472"
Duration @ .050"
Intake-204* Exhaust-214*
Advertised Duration:
Intake 262*/ Exhaust 272*
Lobe separation:
112*

Idle:
Very nice IMO with just a slight "lope".
No surging, No hunting idle, No stalling, No eyes burning from being way too rich.
Low rpm driveability:
Also very nice IMO.
No bucking, No misfiring, and it can still lug around in OverDrive at as low as 1100 rpm's.
Mid Range torque/power:
Excellent. Car is very responsive, even moreso than stock. Car revs and accelerates VERY cleanly and crisp from just about any rpm, which is EXACTLY what I wanted.
High RPM power:
Summit said it'd make excellent power to 5500 rpm's, and that claim is dead on. It'll rev higher, but you can't really "feel" any power or pull, above that point. It does pull very nicely to that 5500rpm spot though. Again, just what I was hoping for since I didn't want to do any rear gear swaps or anything like that.

As soon as I get some miles on it and get in one more quick oil change, I'll be headed to dyno again to get some new, realistic numbers. Right now car is running it's stock 38psi base fuel pressure and it's stock setting of 6* base ignition timing.

Rest of the combo is as follows:
Summit/TFS 170 aluminum heads, "cleaned up" slightly by me (2.02/1.60 valves)
Stock ported and siamesed plenum
Ported and Siamesed SLP runners
Ported (slightly) Edelbrock 3860 base intake
Ford Racing 24# injectors
Hedman Elite 1-5/8" longtube headers
MAM 2-1/2" front Y pipe
gutted cat (soon to be replaced by straight pipe I fabbed up)
Dynomax rear Y w/crossover
Dynomax UltraFlo stainless mufflers

Here's a quick video I made this afternoon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NKIElc4mbg

I wanted to again say THANKS to all who had been trying to help me figure out the misfire issue I was having. It sucked that it wound up being a camshaft...especially since many had said I was wasting my time doing the other mods without a cam swap. Oh well....it's swapped now and car seems to love it's new combo...

 

Sounds like you got exactly what you were after

You used plenty of lube and maybe even some new lifters, right?

 

Glad to hear you got it sorted out, Bob. When are you installing the auto?

 

sounds great!

 

great to hear! enjoy motoring

 

 

I checked out your pics - great work. Question - did you stay with the stock valve covers and did you have any clearance problems with the roller rockers (were they the Trick Flow rollers?)? Thanks

 

Please show before & after dyno numbers. Thanks.

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone! I'm glad to be back on the road and hitting on all 8 for a change, lol.

LOL, absolutely well lubed. New cam, new lifters, new double row timing set, diesel oil, etc....

 

Wife wants to know the same thing....

I am in no hurry, like I also explained to her. I just want to enjoy the car for at least a short while before disassembling it yet again...

 

I kept the stock valve covers and had to trim one of the drip rails or whatever they call them. I run the Crane 1.6 roller rockers, just like these:

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...6&autoview=sku

 

I have no "before" when stock, and the "before" was done with the heads, intake and longtubes the car literally had a multitude of issues with it, one being the bad cam. I do have that sheet hosted though...

http://home.comcast.net/~rel3rd/wsb/...2/site1420.jpg

 

Bob, sounds good, i did not expect thia quick though, u did a good job and choice with cam, now enjoy. sami

 

Your car sounds great has a healthy idle to it. Did you do anything to the chip?

 

Sounds great Bob. I am sure it will be a solid 12 sec machine.

 

Good job, rel3rd. Looking forward to seeing some numbers and track vids.

 

No sir.
Electronics are stock 1985 standard equipment, complete with notoriously slow acting "870" PCM.
With the lack of idle issues, I'm probably not going to even worry about a "tune" unless the dyno shows something telling me to think otherwise. Last time (with all the other issues) the a/f ratio averaged between 12.75 and 13.1:1 right up until it started breaking up and misfiring. If it stays the same I should be good to go. The way it's running right off the bat I'm hoping to just have to maybe play with base ignition timing & base fuel pressure a little (mainly to tweak a few more ft/lbs or hp out of it) and be done.

The only issue I had so far was a stubborn air pocket that caused a comical situation with me & my buddy both dodging antifreeze while trying to re-install radiator cap, lol.



Thanks for the compliments guys. I appreciate it.

 

Congrats on getting it fiqured out and fixed better than ever. She sounds good !!!

 

Thanks.
The sunny side of this whole fiasco is that while parts swapping to try and figure it out, now that it's mechanically sound, everything else is in tip-top shape too, lol.

Two regrets along the way though...

1. Everyone told me to swap the cam when I did heads and intakes.
If I had, the problem would have never been there.

2. My first instinct was cam, and I kept saying it "sounded like a wiped cam", but I didn't follow my gut feeling...
What threw me off that suspicion was that it sometimes ran great and didn't seem to miss or backfire at all...

Thanks again to everyone who offered help and suggestions along the way...

 

Bob,
You da man. Now go to Corvettes at Carlisle!