Whats the next step up from the hotcam.

 

Man GMMP has a bunch of grinds.

Im running a crane clone of a GM hydro cam. 234/242 575/595 on 112. Thats much more than a step up from the hotcam however

 

does it have to be from GM?
you can get any cam (any lift, durration, intake/exhuast opening and closing points, advance ect) made for you...

cams dont really have "steps" unless you are going through a particular series (ie cc 304, 305 and 306 or Xe 224,230,236,242)

One may have more intake while the other has more exhuast. one may lift more while the other has more durration. Its kind of hard to classify cams in steps, unless agian you are looking at a particalar series

 

like zz1, zz3, zz4, zz9, hot cam, lt-4, why does the majority of people go with the hot cam if there are hotter. What are the pn's for the hotter cams from the hot cam.

 

Most people use the hotcam because GM markets it as a complete set with springs, rockers, shims etc all included. It makes buying a cam package foolproof and easy. There are thousands of combos which will have better driving characteristic and more power than the hot cam, you just need a little knowledge to put it together and have the components work with each other.

 

easy fool proof setup
good for a "beginer cam"
no real upgrades in heads/valvetrain REQUIRED
nice kit
nice prices
tuning readily available
doesn't rev too high


when you go bigger, you have to make sure your valvetrain is stong enough. its costing me a small fortune to make my valvetrain strong enough for my cams lift. you get low end bog, poor vacuum, and all kinds of stuff

 

a action always provides a reaction

 

I think I can give a few reasons for the high acceptance and usage rate of the HOT cam based upon the reports of others on this website.

1) It's fairly streetable and it works with most of the stock stuff. Most of the people on here have daily-driven cars. Hence, they don't want to go to radical and sacrifice reliablity and low end performance. The HOT cam is supposed to give great gains, especially with a reprogram. I think I've even read a few posts where people just installed the cam and waited until they had the money for a reprogram. That's another aspect, you don't have to spend tons of money on things like headwork and flycut pistons. For the average Joe, the HOT cam is a backyard swap.

2) RPM range. From most of the things I've read on this site, the HOT cam delivers power increases well above the stock rev limiter at 5800 RPM, while not sacrificing a lot of power on the bottom end. Most of the people that have it installed have raised their rev limiters to help the cam, but state that the cam will deliver power well into the 6200-6499+ RPM range when the stock two bolt main block starts to give a little because of all the stress and people wind up with spun bearings and such. With that in mind, why would you want to give up low end power to raise the power range even higher, where the block is strength-limited?

3) Popularity. This cam swap is fairly popular and has given more than satisfactory results many times over. It's tried and true and people rarely have problems with it. Most of the technical aspects and issues have already been answered, leaving less for the do-it-yourself cam installer to deal with. It may not always be cool to have the same thing as the next guy, but if his already works great for all intended purposes, why not?

Granted, I don't understand all aspects of high-performance cams and there are many technical issues that this reply may not have covered, but I believe that it provides more than enough basis for the reasons many people are choosing the HOT cam despite there being more radical profiles on the market. Bigger isn't always better, especially in a street car, and this cam swap is fairly easy, and can be done by the average back-yard power freak without too many complications with clearance and such. The HOT cam has proven its worth many times over, and as long as it continues to do so there will be a large market for it.

 

umm- cam wear isn't really an issue on a hydrolic roller

everything you've ever wanted to know about the hotcam and a bag of peanuts!

 

Or that is what me and Bryan at PCMFORLESS.COM thinks. He thinks I got a bad cam and it is ground way advanced, the motor has pinged since I had it, it has high 900 02 readings, and he has already backed major timing out and it still pings. Just sitting at a light with brakes on the scanner shows 1 degree of knock, has -12cc pistons, so its not compression, and I am positive the gears and chain are right.

 

Do the math, higher friction which it will have = higher wear.

 

it would really suprise me if the cam was ground impropperly... they are pretty strict about that stuff for obvious reason.

but hey, anything can happen. I've seen lincoln LS's roll off the assembly line with HUGE paint gouges down the hood

edit:
if you are worrying about cam wear in a hyrdolic roller...
you are REALLY splitting hairs and should probobly concider a job working in GM's accounting offices

 

I think it is fuel, needs more, for detonation you either pull timing or add fuel USUALLY to fix it.

 

GM makes up from the hotcam?

 

I think trey already addressed that. There arent any steps really with the hotcam. What are you looking for more duration, different LSA, more lift? Just get it ground how you want it.