'96 Impala SS. I want to get as much power as I can but retain good drivability. What cams have you used that had good drivability habits? Thanks

 

there are all kinds of threads about cam choices on this board. it all boils down to what you want out of it. do you want to stay emissions legal? do you want an irratic idle? where do you want your power curve? would this be more for street or strip? would it be a cam only setup? what gear ratio are you wanting to run?

 

Might help to check this Forum www.impalassforum.com

John

 

Thanks for the link to the Impala forum I will check it out.

To answer SS RRRs questions, it would be cam only and I would like it to pass emissions as well as have near stock driveability and idle. It is a daily driven street car.

 

Why do you want to change the cam? The stock baby cam works very well with the stock heads. Myself and a few others have run in the 12s with it Do all the bolt-ons first and then decide if you want to change the cam.

Look for 96capricemgr on here and the impala forum. He started out with a cam swap before doing the bolt-ons and barely picked up anything.

 

I had great luck with the Comp 304. I dont know if they make it anymore though. You may be able to find one for sale in a the classifieds on the Impala forum. The hot cam is another one, so is the ZZ4, and the ZZ9 from TPIS. What ever cam you choose you will probably want to upgrade the stall or you may be slower than stock due to the low end torque loss. I would get gears and a stall anyway since it is such a heavy car to get off the line.

 

Like Cheston said I did a cam early on, the above mentioned ZZ4 cam and gained almost nothing till I later gave it the supporting mods which gained me a lot at that point.

Honestly spend more time looking at cams on the b-body board a little less tendancy to over cam on that side of the LT1 fence not to mention it is folks with a similar weight car. What is genuinely a good choice for a mild f-body can be a tad big for a b-body, we carry around more weight and often are more "family" cars rather than a hotrod.

Back on the cam vs. supporting mods, with the cam but stock stall, exhaust manifolds, gears best was 14.9, 2800 stall and tranny build combined with a drop to 87 octane netted 14.1, 3.42 gears 13.9, headers 13.2. After that I did heads and redid the cam and have gone faster yet but you are a couple years from being that diseased, you will get there though.

One advantage we have is the b-body chassis seems to hook a whole lot better than the f-body especially on the street this is lots of fun.

 

I have full intent to do LTs and exhaust first as well as a 3.5 MAF and tune. I also am not against getting heads, but I would like to see how far I can push the irons.

 

I am not saying you have to do heads, exhaust CAI stall and gears need to come first though before the cam.

 

Like the guy's said. Try the Bolt ons and gears first. I hit 12.80s with the Bolt ons and gears. Dwayne is right,there's alot in just the Bolt ons for our cars.
Check out the ET page for set ups. http://dan.esteban.com/impalass/ReturnTopET.asp

John

 

I guess I should have been more specific. I consider the bolt ons a give in, so when I said 'cam only' I ment the cam is the only change to the longblock, changing everything attached to it was a for sure. My last car turned into a drag only car and I figure if I keep the stock heads and intake, that should hold me back enough to remind myself that this is a daily driver.