What Cam?

[Mcdunn516]

Im looking to put a new/bigger cam in my 85 K10.  The truck is a 350 converted to HEI, turbo 350 trans, 600 cfm carb, edelbrock intake manifold,  headers, true duals, 4.10 gears, 6" lift on 35s. Im not looking for the thing to be a hot rod, but i want to put a bigger cam in. I just dont know much about cams and dont know where to even start.

What are your suggestions, this truck is just a toy and i do not drive it daily, or go on trips with it, its just a weekend cruiser that i take to some car shows.


Mike

[rich weyand]

Comp Cams 12-235-2.

Search my last name and comp cams at the top of the forums.  Some are in performance and some are in engine/drivetrain, but there are a lot of posts about this, discussing all the details and reasons, etc.

The big mistake is to go "bigger" in the cam, and end up with something with horsepower up top and no bottom.  BTDT.  The stock heads on your 350 (and mine) don't have a lot of compression, and you can't use one of those high-overlap cams to advantage.  Particularly in a truck, particularly in a K truck.  There are only 720 degrees around a cam (two turns of the crank), and so there are tradeoffs.  What you want is a fat torque curve with a lot of beef to it over the stock cams, which is pretty easy to do with higher lifts and modern grinds.  300 or so horsepower and 425 lbft of torque at low enough rpms to make it fun is pretty easy, and very nice improvement over stock.  You can get more horsepower, but at higher rpms and then it's a brick off the line.

Anyway, I did a lot of research on this, and called up a ton of people who ought to know including engine designers and tuners and gearhead hot rod guys, and basically the answer is:

Compa Cams 12-235-2.

Here's some other reading for you.

This whole thread: http://forum.73-87chevytrucks.com/smforum/index.php?topic=26161.0

This page: http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/How_to_choose_a_camshaft

[Dan75k20]

12-235-2 is a great cam I just installed it last week truck runs great