Every ones opinion of whats a "big" cam is different. If I had those heads and that combo and was not going to get the Rhoads I would get the 288 cam.
It appears that you are concerned about idle quality and vacuum for power brakes. The 290 cam is a cam where everything has to be really dialed in to work. The difference between the 286 and 290 seems to me to be very little. You may be still skating on thin ice with the 286. However the difference between the 290 and 288 is enough that it would probaly work quite well.
i think a 3angle valve job and or back cutting the valves, takes care of that, and it is done almost all the time, if not i dont think you could call them performance heads, i am asumming it was done to these heads???
I think he means using the top seat (30 degree) of the 3 angle as the sealing point instead of the middle seat (45 degree) that is normally used. steve walsh
There's a good chance that the 286 won't met my idle requirements. I'll get a chance to hear something of the idle at dyno day and I think if it goes bad the best bet is to swap out the cam to the 288. Maybe geting both up here for dyno day is the way to go... Kelly, The heads are indeed cut with a 3 angle valve job and he valves are back cut. I agree that without this basic work the heads are might as well have not been touched. The only thing that was screwed up is that the unshroud was not done. Bad Buick, I also think the 116 LC and reduced intake is a little cleaner on the 288 as far as idle is concerned. It's a ~20 HP hit, and the top end curve isn't as nice. That's the trade at this point. With a new HEI, a good double roller system, and a well built Q-Jet carb I'm going to try and cover some of the potential problems. I've also got both an edelbrock and an SP-1 to experiment with here, intake selection will go hand in hand with the cam... Steve, Emailed you about the sheet.
