I'm looking for help deciding on a cam for my 06 LS2. THIS IS NOT A RACE CAR, it's my only and daily driver. Automatic, currently stock drivetrain but plan on getting a 3.42 diff at some point and a small stall converter when I eventually rebuild the torque tube.
I've decided to get new LS3 heads, already bought an LS3 intake, and a 25% UD SFI damper. I figure if I'm going in there to change the damper I might as well go a few more bolts in and do a cam.
If there is a LITTLE lope, that's ok, but I don't want a rough idle - I'm past that age.

The cams I'm looking at are:
Comp 54-424-11 1400 to 6700 XR265HR 265 271 212 218 .558 .563 115°
Comp 54-453-11 1500 to 6700 269LRR HR13 269 285 219 235 .607 .621 113°
Cam Motion LS2 stg3 218/224 .553"/.553" (or high lift .595) Lobe sep 116 c/l 113
Cam Motion LS3 stg2 216/226 .553"/.553" Lobe sep 116 c/l 113

I kind of like the idea of the lower lift cams and not having to change the valve springs, but if the extra lift would significantly help the torque, I'd go that route.

Again, this is NOT a race car, just a fun daily driver. I'd like it to have a little bit of a lumpy idle, just enough so you can hear that it's not stock, but not shake the car and sound like it needs to idle at 900 to keep from stalling. I need it to idle at 650 or so, pull good vacuum, and make good "street power", not just pull hard from 4500 and up.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'll have the Borla S-Type back half, and either the Speed Engineering long tubes with cats and 3" x-pipe or Z06/ZR-1 manifolds and cats with the 3" x-pipe.

 

I am thinking about this one, Cam Motion LS2 stg3 218/224 .553"/.553. I dont really need it, as I am ok with the car stock. I just have too much time on my hands.

 

All four cam choices seem very suboptimal with gear, converter, LS3 heads & LS3 intake in the works for the car. They are dinky enough I wouldn't bother running them in an heavier daily driver fbody LS1 never mind a larger cube LS2 in a lighter weight Corvette. It's a ~3,200 pound sports car not a ~5,500 pound pick up truck 😊

Both cams are daily driver friendly.

Spinmonster-cam-tsp-custom-grind-ls2-cam-only-results is probably more in line with your overall desired goals.

Summit's Racing Stage 1 Pro LS Ghost Cam 222/233 115+3, .600/.575 Lift would be the smallest to consider for a daily driver type LS2 in my honest opinion.

 

The Spin Monster is WAY more intake duration than I want to go.

 

30 years younger and I'd agree with you. Older, slower and wiser now...........

 

For an LS2, give these specs to Cam Motion:

218°/228° . . .585"/.585" . . 116° LSA +3

These cam specs will give your cam an overlap of -9°

 

And for valve springs with the cam specs I listed above ... Replace your stock beehive springs with a set of PAC-1218 beehive (drop-in) springs.

Your valvetrain will last a long long time.

 

My wife's SSR has an LS2 under the hood. It's a 6 speed manual which she handles just fine. It's going to get ported and milled 243 heads from Tx Speed (going to send the stock LS2 heads to them for the work). Ported TBSS high rise intake manifold from Gwatney. A 225/232 115+3 Cam Motion custom grind with .610 lift on both sides. Also will get a 10% u/d crank pulley from Power Bond.

Besides more camshaft, I'd change up a few other things on your build. You're going to lose significant static compression ratio with the LS3 heads. That hurts power, drivability, and fuel eco in a street car. You can get some of it back with milling and a thinner head gasket. Better yet, CNC port, mill, and use a thinner head gasket with the 243/799 LS2 heads you have and you're ahead in the ball game. Well ported LS2 heads compare pretty well with stock LS3 heads flow wise. Tx Speed can CNC port, mill, do a competition valve job, clean, assemble with your valve spring of choice, for around $800.
I think you're needlessly worried about big cam issues. Absolutely, you can go too big and have issues. The only cam in your list that has potential for bad manners is the LRR Comp Cam. I'm guessing that's actually an LSR cam ground on Comp's LSL lobes. Those are fairly aggressive lobes that I wouldn't use on a street car.

Back to cam choice and the trade offs. My wife drives my M6 Vette just fine with a 226/234 115lsa cam. 0 overlap. She's 64 years young. It will idle smoothly along in 6th gear at under 40 mph. There's no "shifting out of the bad spots" because there aren't any. I can accelerate to about 34 mph without touching the accelerator pedal. Just shift through the gears from a standing stop. An auto car would have no trouble. It makes more power than a stocker from idle on up. The tuner started my dyno run at idle. Outside of a little less fuel eco in town, there's no down side to it. Yes, it does have a little bit of a rough idle. I have 1.875" long tubes and no cats. I can deal with a bit of a rough idle when it's packaged with really good power and perfect manners.

If you want kind of mediocre results, you're on the right track. You can do better though

 

I thought about having the 243's ported, but the down time would be an issue for me. I saw a few places that do an exchange, but it looked like several months to get the core charge back. I could still go that route - too many choices.

 

I bought a spare set of heads and an intake when I did the work on my Vette. That's what I sent off for port work. The engine was "open" for just a few hours. I sold the heads and intake when we pulled them off to add all of the new parts. Doing the same thing with the wife's SSR. Already have the heads and intake, but haven't sent them out for port work yet. You'll probably want a FAST intake vs porting your stock LS2. I have room to fit a high rise Trail Blazer SS intake manifold on her SSR, and unlike the stock LS2 intake mani, the highrise LS2 manifold is a pretty decent piece. It just won't fit under a stock C6 hood.

The cam I used on my Vette build is mild enough that it drove around just fine on the stock tune. I just didn't do any WOT stuff until the tune was done.

 

Agree on not porting the LS2 intake. They have a rather dismal reputation. Can't imagine why GM didn't just carry over the LS6 intake. Instead, they invested a lot of $$$$ in new molds for a new intake, which failed miserably. Agree on either FAST, or MSD... .

 

I tried to get a FAST - what a piece of junk: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...sxr-102-a.html

I might do an MSD - had one before - but even that I'd send for porting as the ports weren't "right".

 

Posting this really made me think - it's NOT a race car and I don't need to be the fastest guy around, just enjoy it and not blow a bunch of money on it. So, I'm going to skip the LS3 top end and just do the Cam Motion drop in LS2 stage 3 cam with the low lift. It will run with the stock springs, so no need to do anything on the heads and doesn't require a tune.
Better to just keep it simple at this point. I'll probably do an MSD intake since it's cheaper than the the LS3 stuff, but I can do that whenever I want.

Thanks for all the input guys!

 

LOL 😆🤣

​Pushing toward 60 here & all four of my cars are built & cam'd to be very much daily driver's. Intake duration isn't the enemy of good stock like driveablity as long as the overlap is zero or less.

That Ghost Cam is very well mannered with a decent tune. It has -2 degrees of overlap at .050 my old 224/224 XER had 0 degrees and drove like stock on a mail order tune except up hill in a parking deck. The Ghost is even more daily driver friendly.

Have fun in any case.

 

Being older means I've been doing some seriously fun stuff for a long time. I fooled with nitrous on Gen 1 small block Chevys in the '70's before most reading this were born. Also means that when I put something together, there aren't many surprises. My builds do what I think they're going to do because there's experience behind the decisions made. I'm 100% sure I've already experienced my last LS powered street car with a cam that's too big. Also pretty sure I've had my last supercharged LS ride. Enjoyed the hell out of all of them. At 67, I'm totally aware of my limitations though. 500 wheel in a 3150# C6 is enough to put a smile on my face nowadays. Believe if or not....the wife loves hanging on for dear life when conditions allow

 

I've had a lot of complications from the 2nd Pfizer vax. These days I'm just trying to get through the day with as few problems as possible. My legs lost most of their strength, so it's very difficult for me to get back up once I've gotten down to work on something - I have to pull myself up. It makes working on cars a lot more difficult and time consuming than it used to be. Now I spend triple or more the normal time to get things done because I get worn out so easily. That's just one of the many problems that have taken me down several notches since the 2nd shot.

 

I'm sure I've ported 100 of them and not once did I see anything like that. I would have gotten an exchange unit. I've personally had so much power gained porting the FAST that I would still never get anything else.

 

Keep the lift near .550" for longevity.
Use a slow ramp camshaft, like TFS-30602001
Slow ramps prevent guide abuse, increase stability at high RPM.
PAC1218 is a great spring if its an option for you.

With TFS-30602001 and PAC1218 for example are successfully 600rwhp to 800rwhp daily drivers on forced induction

 

I did buy an MSD yesterday and will send it to the "rod mod" folks for porting.

 

That really sucks. Hope you get to feeling better soon! I had two Moderna shots and still got covid. Got it at a New Orleans destination wedding with 150 "friends". I heard more than half of the folks there got it. I've had my last jab though. The covid that got the wife and I wasn't bad. More of a nuisance.