Which cam for stock LT1
 

I have a mostly stock 94 6-speed LT1 car. Only mods are 160* thermostat, and homemade cold air induction. I want to put in an aftermarket cam but don't know which one to go with. Everybody seems to be going with either the LT4 hotcam or the CC306. Others say get a custom grind.

Here's what I want from the new cam:
- No loss of low or mid range power, in fact a gain if possible
- No/minimal loss of fuel economy at part throttle driving
- Substantially more power in the upper RPMs
- Nice, healthy, mean sounding lope at idle

I guess what I'm looking for would be called a mild cam. I want as much of a power gain as possible without sacrificing low or mid range power as well as mean lope at idle. I have heard the LT4 hotcam and CC306 been called smallish cams. If thats the case, then I want something more radical. What kind of custom grind would fit my application?

I know I won't realize the full potential of a good cam without FLPs, heads, PCM tuning, etc. Although PCM tuning is on the cards, it will be a while before I get FLPs. Heads will be left untouched in all probability as I have to keep downtime to a minimum. This car is my daily driver.

Well first off the cc306 is by far not a small cam. It is actually one of the bigger cams that you can throw in your Z. It is 230/244. Pretty big. !:D It sounds like you want something inbetween the Hotcam and the cc306. I would recomend either the comp cam 224/230 or the 230/236. Both of those are great cams without sacraficing low end power and a big increase in upper rpm power.:thumb: I would go to www.cmotorsports.com and talk to them about the cams. Seth is the man there. They might even have the cam packages again with the 987 springs and RR. I would suggest getting 1.6 RR if you want more power from your cam.

Comp Cams extreme 502 sounds like it would be right up your alley.:D

With my hotcam i lost almost no MPG and i gained a lot of mid and upper power without sacrificing low end torque. If you go much bigger than a hotcam then you are going to be sacraficing low end torque for upper end power which is not bad but you said you wanna keep your torque. Oh and you can definitley hear a lope when my car is at idle..................headers + exaust + lope= Intimidation!!!!!!!!!!!1




Chris

Now way joe, biggers always better ...duh.......he needs an 847 at a minimum:D

Stock heads? why don't you check comp cams recommendation of cams...
Or maybe Bryan at pcmforless since your going to have him tune it. He's probably seen a lot of cams, their tuning issues, and their results on stock heads.

224/230

whats the diffrence between the 224/230 and the XE 224/230?

i'm running the xe230/236 112 it works well. all perfomance cams will cost a little low end. you can deffinatly tell its a cammed car, i constantly get complimentd on the sound. and i also got 7 to 10 mph in the 1/4. it is a little rough under 1500 rpm. my gas milage is still 24ish with 373s and a4. the cam turns on hard at 3000

the major problem i have is the rear tire wear.

I'm leaning towards the CC306 but I don't want to go too big. As I posted earlier, I don't have the money or time to do any headwork on this car. Therefore, I need a cam that will work well with stock heads. Do any of the grinds mentioned so far require modifications to the heads?

Dude....did you hear what Limited said? The 306 isn't a mild cam. Have you heard the HotCam. That's probably a mild cam but if you heard the lope you wouldn't think so.

The cc306 is not a small cam like i already said earlier. In fact it won't work well on a set of stock heads(it will work, but not as good as it could.) I don't even think you will be able to pass emissions with it if that's a concern for you. I DO NOT recomend that cam, unless you are porting your heads.

If you want to lose low end,and have to rev over 6k rpms to get max HP..get the 306.I suggest the hot cam or 218/224.any bigger and you start getting less friendly.Some people dont mind,its opinion.You must change your valve springs at least.

I wouldn't go any larger than 224/230 on stock heads. Actually, that is a very good cam for when you would eventually port your heads, but works very well on unported heads as well, from what I've read.

Dan

OK, so I spoke to Comp Cams and they recommended 218/224 114 lsa. However, since the gains from this cam are quite small to justify the work and the expense, I asked them if I could step up to a 224/230. They said that the longer duration would bump up the peak torque by a couple hundred RPM. They also mentioned that running too much duration would cause loss of low end torque to the effect that I would have to downshift quite often and that I wouldn't be able engage 6th gear until a pretty high speed on the highway.

So now I'm leaning towards 224/230 @0.050 112.

This brings me to another question. Would I be better off leaving the stock cam in there and working on the heads instead? How about a mild port and polish along with a three angle valve job? Any sense in getting oversized valves while I'm at it?

^^^ wondering the same thing.