cv67

Emo, that cam will be totally liveable on the street on a motor your size. Cubic inches really tames out what appears to be a roudy cam on paper.

JimiHendrix

Does this cam "chop" more than a say a hot cam in a 350. I think I've had it with the shaky idle. People say the choppy idle in a stock LT-1 w/hot cam is mild. I have this cam in my 350, and it doesn't sound mild at all. Shakes the **** out of my passengers who think my engine is missing. Nice snappy throttle though and crisp accel from 2000 rpm and up. But I had it on a dyno and the horsepower numbers were embarassing. (240hp max at the rear wheels...... )

steve40th

The 396 I have has the standard 396 crank of 3.875 inches and I use 5.85 inch rods. Some have used 6 inch rods. I use SRP pistons -12cc piston.
This link shows the innards in their 383/396 section
http://www.speeddemonmotorsports.com...engineLT1.html

Aggravated4life

Just wanted to add,look at the new LS7,it makes 505 HP but its also a 427 cubed engine!

The LT1 can be made to perform,and stroking the engine or increasing cube size seems to be the best way to get there.The guys on here have tried their stuff and know it through and through.

Jake also brought up some good points.Keep the goal realistic and build it to where it can be done and perform.

Zix

If the HotCam chops at idle and you're getting poor HP number then I'll bet your computer tune is WAY off. In most cars (depending on exhaust setups) with the proper tune you can barely tell the HotCam is even there.

Aurora40

Just to address your initial post about other cars, the 'vette with 600hp will not be naturally aspirated. And most new sports cars do not have 350+hp. The Mustang GT, Nissan 350Z, Subie STi, Mitsu Evo, etc all have around 300hp. Even the Porsche 911 only has 325hp.

That said, certainly these C4's can stand a boost if you want one. But you don't have to have 500whp to be faster than most cars you'll meet on the street.

JAKE

Yep, I agree. The Hot Cam - even though it has a catchy name (marketing) isn't much of a cam at all - IMHO

Jake

JAKE

Sounds like tune to me. Did you degree the cam; have a re-burn, check for a vacuum leak? What injectors are you running?

Jake

JAKE

A 400 crank has a 3.75" stroke and all of the factory cranks that I know of are cast, not forged.

Aftermarket cranks with longer, 3.75" strokes abound these days. Years ago they were as rare as hen's teeth, but nowadays several companies sell them. A forged crank with the same stroke at 400 SBC came with is readily available. You can even get one that has a tad more stroke; a tad more than 3.75".

One of the problems is that once you go much over 3.75" in stroke, other changes have to be made; like rod length, piston pin hole location, camshaft clearance, etc.

That's one of the main reasons that stuffing a 4" stroke crank in our blocks is so problematic. You'll end up with shorter rods (negatively effecting your rod length/stroke ratio), pistons with very little skirt, a reduced base circle camshaft, etc.

Jake

Curveit

A 396 has a 3.875" crank. There are kits for these combos, as well as 4" cranks, with rods and the correct pistons included. While shorter rods are not required; most use 5.70" or longer, the correct ones are needed for clerance. There is some block grinding, and sometimes block-fill is needed.

STL94LT1

240 at the wheels is less than most bone stock LT1's. Even with the stock tune, the Hot Cam will perform pretty well at WOT. Something is definately wrong.

tt 383

TEA has a stage3 TFS lt1 head that supposedly flows like 300cfm @ .500 lift... with a good cam and 396 cubes you may come close! I believe a lt4 intake is required though.......

JAKE

300 cfm @ .500! That'd be a nice trick, but I don't believe it's possible.

TFS submitted a pair of CNC'd then hand ported LS2 heads to a head shoot-out and even those LS2's couldn't flow that. Just to put things in perspective, the TFS heads out-flowed the set that AFR sent to the shoot-out.

None of the five or six sets of heads flowed anywhere near 300 cfm @ .500. At .600, yea, but NOT .500. We all know that LS2 heads out flow LT1 heads. So 300 CFM at .500 is BS.

Jake

hexane

I bet a big block stroker, i.e. 454 stroked to a 496 or larger with some nice heads and a lumpy cam could surpass 500 rwhp naturally aspirated. But that is going to be very hard to put in a C4, unless you plan on hogging out a lot of stuff. A small block would be a lot harder, but it still would be possible.

wayne lowry

**** the HORSEPOWER NUMBER !! IT'S JUST A NUMBER ON PAPER !!!!
Don't get caught up in the horsepower war on paper. A Z06 STOCK runs high 11s which is very good. A 400rwhp C4 with the right gears and tires also runs 11s I don't race on a dyno.

Corvette Kid

Yes, a forum member most of us would know has a 409 LTx engine using a 4" crank. This engine makes ungodly HP on spray and while that particular point has nothing to do with this topic, it's been together for three years now through some very serious types of racing.

Obviously not the ultimate cam for any serious LTx build. But it suits the purposes of many of us when it comes to a combination of mileage, driveability and decent power. The "lowly" Hotcam in my 388 with ported factory LT1 heads is rear-wheeling just under 400 HP.

Very true, one would be foolish to even consider screwing around with an original factory 400 crank.

cv67

Wouldnt it be nice if someone actually listened to this?

wayne lowry

No **** Good people get hung up on 500 horsepower 600 horsepower etc. all the time. They try to bassackwards calculate chp so they can have some big ******* inflated horsepower number to talk about. I knew a guy with a 700+ horsepower Supra and I whipped it's *** over and over and over with 440 go figure huh ?? It's not all about building the highest peak horsepower number you can, you have to live with the thing.

Corvette Kid

How true. This is why I've always been so hesitant to even mention HP numbers and such around here. Some a-hole is just going to tell you how far you've fallen short. WTF does it matter? We all know how much dynos vary. And beyond that, having HP and actually utilizing it are two entirely different things. It's only track/racing results that matter. The next results I'll post will be when I run the timed standing start mile at Maxton NC next spring and also when I finally make it to the nearest 1/4 mile track to me which is Rockingham, 2 1/2 hours away. 1/8th times and especially the trap speeds have been very encouraging but past that mean nothing to me since I have a 3.07 rear end and have no plans or desire to change that.
Although I've learned to just ignore them, few things irk me more than threads that state "I'm going to do this, that and the other thing. How much HP will I have?" Good God, do I even need to say more? Figure out what your needs are, what you want to accomplish, do your homework and let the numbers fall where they will.

JAKE

I consider the ZZ9 and the Hot Cam as entry level, performance cams. It seems that many feel it's always necessary to defend their parts choice - It's like if they admit they made a wrong choice it's somehow demeaning and lessens their self-esteem. Must be an ego thing going on.

I, for one, chose a 58mm TB and posted that it was the wrong move. I went back to a 52 and became a happy camper. Had I chose 52 up front I would have saved myself a few hundred dollars. Bigger's not always better; live and learn.

Jake