Starting to think about a cam swap. Currently reading and absorbing books from people like Lingefelter, Vizard, etc. I’m not inexperienced in cam selection, but its been a decade (or two) since I’ve had to actually select specs.

car: 1988 corvette, L98, 700r4, 3.07 rear. Everything is currently stock.
heres the curve ball: I’m currently fabricating an lt1 intake for it:



Thats the rear piece of an L98 lower intake mated to the rear of an lt1 intake. That's just the first pass, so the welds are pretty gross and theres a lot of crap baking out of the cast as I TIG. Theres lots more work to do to it, but you get the idea.

it’s also getting 1.5 Crane full roller rockers, but thats more about reducing friction (and increasing efficiency) than anything else. well, that and the fact that OEM stamped rockers have been known to be somewhat...”liberal” with their tolerances and the actual ratio they have. I’ve got hardened guides to go in and I’ll order hardened pushrods once I know what lengths I need.

I’ve toyed with just chucking an LT4 hotcam kit in it. It would (At least) take care of the egr issue, although I have been looking at how I could weld the egr bosses back on and still clear the big cap distributor.

Car is just a street cruiser, not even a weekend track day anywhere in its future.

Expectations are somewhat modest, hoping to hit somewhere around 300-350 crank. 350 might be a bit much to hope for with (essentially) just a cam and intake swap. 300 might be in reach though. Would like to keep at least a strong low/mid rpm punch since this is a street car.

It’s not like I hate the TPI, I actually kinda like the looks and the TPI “bottom end grunt” is great fun. But this car seems to make it very hard to launch (with any serious throttle) without blowing away both rear tires (posi). A tad softer bottom end might actually make it easier to get off the line hard. Not to mention, working in and around that TPI intake just makes everything a nightmare...

Tuning isn’t an issue. I’ve got Tunerpro RT and a Moates APU1. It has, however, been a while since I’ve worked in obdI. I usually mess with obd ii with tunercat ii. I sprung for the zif adapters, multi-tune chip adapter and remote “tune switcher”. I’ll have a main calibration for everyday use, another maybe optimized for mpg, one for “valet” and maybe one for if I decide to run cutouts.....;assuming I don’t end up with just one main tune that covers everything (except valet) that is. Datalogging may be a challenge though. I’ve read a couple blurbs that the vette ecm has a nasty habit of breaking communication without a 10k load. Guess I’ll find out when I get i to it...luckily, I’m pretty sure I read the APU1 can simulate that 10k query resistance.

so any suggextions on a cam profile or some good reading material to get my old gray matter back up to snuff?

 

Are you going to keep the 3.07s? Hotcam could work decent, with some gear/converter it would come to life. Or put a converter in it and go from there.
There are small cap HEI's out there to clear your EGR

 

Hadn’t given it a lot of thought. Adding some gear would prob be the way I would go.

Thinking about it, adding a little more gear would prob “cover” any torque peak I might loose with the lt1 intake as opposed to the L98 LTR.

Maybe something around 3.45/3.55. I’d really like to swap to a dana 44, but they’re almost impossible to find around here and if you do, they’re stupid expensive....

 

With the LT1 intake you are still a bit held down by your heads. I would say a 218/224 on a 114 LSA. You would have to see how much lift your heads would take, but I would try to be getting close to the max allowable lift. That would be what I would be looking for, but that is me

Then I would realize there are guys who have done this for some many years and have seen so many combinations, I would call them. Specifically Lloyd Elliot. He can actually spec and provide a custom grind if it is not available off the shelf. He quoted me a cam kit with a bit of alteration due to my blower for just about $5 more than off the shelf. The Hot Cam is a safe and proven SBC cam, but is a bit dated as far as technology goes, there have been better cams developed since then. It's worth an email to Lloyd with your build specs and get a quote.

 

I think your '113 heads are fine for your power goals, LPE always got good numbers from them. It would help to port them and then you might hit 350bhp+.

You definitely need to redo the valvetrain for any cam you pick here, you're going to want some more lift. If you can spring for 1.6 RR, then it would help.

I think LT4 hotcam or a cam with similar specs is perfectly fine for your goals, its a proven combination that we've seen hit your goals many times here over the years.

Given that its an A4, the TC definitely needs changing for this intake choice. 2200-2400 is about as high as I like it for a street car. Your car has about 1500-1600rpm stock, and its pretty wimpy. Do the TC before you go swapping gears, just to see how you like the feel. Then 3.54s or 3.73s would go in the rear if you choose that route in a D36.

 

Right now, I'm assuming the transmission is stock. It has been rebuilt at least once though, as the case/pan is painted a light blue. I did question it when I bought the car (had it on a lift) and the seller did say it was a rebuilt. I didn't ask at the time if it was a stock rebuild or not, I just wasn't thinking straight I guess. But it looks like some of "rick rood's" work, which is a local shop here with a pretty good reputation. they also do a lot of "performance" stuff. It was years ago, but I've been meaning to drop in an see if they have any records on it about what was put into it. It's possible the TC has already been altered, it flashes fairly high from what I can recall from driving it this past summer.

But cam first, then save up a couple bucks and decide on the next "improvement".

Exhaust I'm going to build myself. Fire up the pipemax program (been a while since I've used that, hopefully the memory kicks in like it should), source up some 304 stainless and start tig-ing.......