What should I look for before purchasing a camshaft. I mean I have no idea what any of those numbers mean. Help please!

 

One of the popular ones is the 224/224 .563/.563

You can see it here: http://www.thunderracing.com/catalog...&vid=3&pcid=51

They also offer the whole cam swap kit for $600 which is a good deal. (Includes everything needed except for gaskets, which you can add)

Theres a dyno graph there too and it lists the mods on the car too...but that with tuning(which you'll want to do anyways...)

You'll also want to upgrade your valve springs to handle the extra lift to be safe(thats the second set of numbers: ".563/.563")

The first set of numbers is the duration the valves are open in degrees of crankshaft rotation(224/224) (one rotation is 360 degrees)

I havent used this cam but a lot of others are running it.

Is yours an auto or stick?

Also, you'll want to eventually get headers to get the full potential of a cam swap. I recommend Pacesetters(what I have). They are very inexpensive and work great. Excellent value. I've had mine for about 8K miles and I havent had to retighten the header bolts & no leaks and the ceramic coating holds up really well.

EDIT: I hate to keep adding things but if you can afford it, you might as well upgrade the oil pump at the same time as the cam swap since its going to be apart anyways...)

 

Couple of good articles to get you started:

http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/techarticles/49158/

http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/te...48_0307_basic/

 

What are you looking for?

What do you have to tune with?

 

To be honest I am totally lost when it comes to the head and cam part of engines. I understand the purpose of the heads, and i sort of understand some of the camshaft functions. However, I am totally lost as to what cam to buy, what other mods i should make while/before replacing my cam, etc. I dont have a programmer yet, but i plan to purchase one soon. I want my car to be really fast yet streetable. I plan on either porting my stock heads or buying new heads and having them ported as well. I could elaborate further on my plans, but that is all they are for now, plans...Thanks for any help.