goodmorning! I've been working on getting some plans together for building a 383 and have a couple cam questions:
1. what do the cam numbers mean? (eg: 224/236 114lsa)
2. how are cams different? as in - how do i tell how the cam is going to do for me.
I'm not really looking for a suggestion...more like a CAMS101 (hint, hint shoebox).

Thanks,
wade

 

The numbers you posted is the duration for the intake and exhaust. The 114lsa is the number of degrees between intake and exhaust lobe centerline.

www.compcams.com has some good articles on the basics of camshafts....I can't seem to find a really good write up that I was looking at a few months ago...don't seem to remember what that was.

Here's a little article on cam theory.

http://www.chevytalk.com/tech/101/Cam_Theory.html

Might just want to do a search on google and check out a few different pages.

There's a ton of terminology for cams: IO BTDC, IC BTDC, overlap, lift, duration, LSA, blah blah blah.

Check out comp cams for now until someone posts that page I'm trying to think of.

 

I wrote an article on cams for my club's newsletter that is meant to explain EVERYTHING to the beginner. Its not the be-all end-all of cams but it will give you a good understanding of what the numbers mean and how to chose a cam.

If you want it, e-mail me and I'll send it to you, its in word format.

I'd post it on the 'net but we have a policy of waiting until the new issue is out to post content from the old issue.