Cams and Headers??

[True Blue Aggie]

Has anyone put thought or tried just installing a set of cams and long tube headers on our trucks? Wouldn't the cams and headers relieve the heat associated with the air coming from our stock Eaton's, without having to upgrade the upper intake parts?

If I am way off here, just know its raining outside and I am bored watching the A&M basketball game....

[True Blue Aggie]

Wow. No responses at all. I guess everyone is hung up on the KB madness at the moment...

[Mark #2]

More air in and more air out is better.:D

Me: KB in, long tubes, high flow cats, and 2 straight through magnaflows out.

I would like to do Cams but waiting until the built motor is required.

[WA 2 FST]

Camming directly affects, among other things, the efficient rev range of the motor/air pump. The only benefit to aftermarket cams, IMHO, is if you are going to try and make the engine more efficient on the top-end. Right now the powerband is basically 1500-5400+rpm. You're not going to do any better in that rev-range than the stock cams, especially if you're leaving everything else relatively stock.

It's not so much an issue of "heat build-up" as it might be effectively "bleeding off" boost at lower levels as a trade-off to more efficient valve timing events for a higher rpm engine. IE: moving the efficient rev-range to say 2500-6000+rpm.

This then begs the question, "can the stock block/internals take 6000rpm and live very long?" Which would then lead to another question of, "is the stock intake side of things (MAF, inlet, blower) efficient enough to flow the air required to feed the motor at 6000+rpm?" My educated guess to these two questions would be "no".

To me it would be a relative waste (compared to other mods) to install cams without including a better set of heads, intake, blower in order to take advantage of the larger cams. Along with these mods, you'd also want to do a full exhaust.

More air in, more air out is correct. Along with this, if you can increase the efficiency of the engine combo to spin higher rpms, then you have also increased your ability to make horsepower. Obviously you flow more air through a motor at 6500rpm vs. 5500rpm. So as long as all the other related parts are up to the task of higher revs, then camming the motor accordingly is a good idea.

I just happen to believe that the cams would be one of the last things you'd do. You would also have to consider an aftermarket TQ converter that stalls at a higher speed, and possibly lower rear gears... all in an effort to keep the motor in its most efficient powerband. Beyond that, it is important to consider other trade-offs such as emissions issues and fuel consumption... at least for a daily-driver/street-driven truck.

In my experience, I've seen way too many engines "overcammed" which leads to other issues that are definitely not worth having for just a few more peak ponies, and oftentimes the "HP under the curve" is actually less b/c of mismatched parts.

[PoorSvtman]

Im going to be running cams in my new motor... the few over on nloc that have put cams in a basicly stock block and heads gained quite a bit of power with the other usual bolt ons...

[WA 2 FST]

At what rpms have they gained "significant" power? I would like to see precise before and after dyno charts, what amount of boost is being run, what kind of blower is being utilized, etc.

What is your planned combo with the new motor? Ported heads, bigger/more efficient blower?

[PoorSvtman]

Im going to port the heads of course... Im going to run a ported eaton for awhile. Mainly to pay some stuff off... But im probly going to slap a KB on it..

I cant remeber all the numbers but one person over on nloc is danoid. He has a stock unported blower and i believe stage 3 cams. He gained about 60hp i think.. I could be wrong so dont quote me on that.

[WA 2 FST]

Im going to port the heads of course... Im going to run a ported eaton for awhile. Mainly to pay some stuff off... But im probly going to slap a KB on it..

I cant remeber all the numbers but one person over on nloc is danoid. He has a stock unported blower and i believe stage 3 cams. He gained about 60hp i think.. I could be wrong so dont quote me on that.

I trust your numbers... I would just like to see where he gained the power in the rev-range. I'm also betting he increased the boost level along with adding the cams and possibly increased the engine rpm range.

Changing the valve timing events can, in effect, lower the static compression ratio, which may allow one to run more boost safely. You add more overlap to the cam, and you're effectively pushing some of the compression out the exhaust...but you're still flowing a lot more air through the engine than before the cam swap, especially in the higher revs.

[03LightningRocks]

A feller posting as hostile on the Lightningrodder forum put cams on his stock motor and swears he gained 40 HP. Part of me believes it was an inaccurate comparison combined with maybe some slightly more agressive tuning. I am with Wes on this one. I feel like there are other ways to make more power without tearing down the motor. I also agree that having a mismatch in parts can be an issue. I really don't recall ever seeing where hostile did anything with his valve springs or heads to take advantage of a more agressive cam. That was partly where my doubts came from. By the way...I am far from an expert on engine building, so I won't get my feelings hurt if anyone wants to correct any reasoning in this post...:D

[Sixpipes]

Cams by themselves are not worth the risk IMO. I have heard they do inhance performance in conjunction with other stuff (longtubes for instance), but when you consider the front of the motor will have to come off and like Ron says, you have to do springs etc... it just seems like a bad risk to me. :cool:

[PoorSvtman]

I agree... Only reason i decided to go with cams is because my motor is already out and apart... I wouldnt try to install cams in the truck, heck spark plug changes are bad enough..

But when getting cams you have to look at the price of
Cams
Springs/retainers
Cam gears
spacers for the cam gears
then the install tool or the price to have them installed.

[03LightningRocks]

Mike...what spring rating are you going with?

Are you raising the compression ratio of the motor and to what?

[PoorSvtman]

I havent even thought about what springs im going to run.... There was a huge thread on nloc or f150.. But im about to start picking peoples brains on the idea. Im about to check out the manley nextex springs..

[03LightningRocks]

I havent even thought about what springs im going to run.... There was a huge thread on nloc or f150.. But im about to start picking peoples brains on the idea. Im about to check out the manley nextex springs..

The 120 lb seems to be all the rage right now. I know JDM is selling them, but they may be available elsewhere. Apparently valve float has been more of an issue than they had previously realized. I would alos go at least 9:1 if I had the choice. The guys that are bragging about 600 HP on 14lbs of boost are pretty much all running at least a 9:1 ratio. I imagine you want to get the cam profile to set this up properely...with some research maybe you can find out what JDM and JLP are doing with their cam grinds to get there. Neither will give up that info freely, but maybe with the search feature and a few PM's you can find out.

[PoorSvtman]

Yea apparently jdm cams are basicly the ones i have.. But yet since nobody realy knows what his specs are who knows... Im acctualy over on nloc now searching...