Well we'll need a bit more info to answer this one. In what car? What gears do you run in the back? Are you drag racing it or street driving it? Any kind of difference like what, more HP, more torque? Please help us out a little more.
I ran that very same cam in my 455. all stock internals and heads. It slowed my car down from the factory cam. The engine needs more compression. 9 or higher is what TA recommends.
James, A higher performance camshaft is installed in an engine so that it can breathe at higher RPM where it can make more horsepower. It does this by holding the valves open longer. The engine makes less vacuum and may have a rougher idle. Cams bump up the power range of the engine. You lose some at the bottom to make more at the top. The power range of that cam is 2000-5000 RPM. That is a mild cam in a 455. Should be very at home on the street. Gears and converter will enhance the performance but that cam should be fine with stock stuff.
I just put this cam in my 70 Wildcat last fall. Here’s what I have for an example. Basic engine specs: 9.3:1 estimated compression, stock 70 SF block, 70 small valve heads cut .015 3 angle valve job and mild bowl cleanup. Cam installed 4* advanced at 106* intake centreline. B4B intake, pertronics ignition, recurved distributor (12* base, 34* by 2700rpm) stock manifolds, dual 2 1/2” exhaust and quadrajet. Vehicle specs: Stock TH400 and convertor, 3.42 gears w/posi. Car weighs 4300lbs without driver and full tank of gas. Impressions: It lopes enough to know there’s a cam in it, idle vacuum dropped from 19-20” in park to 15-16” sits around 8-10” in gear @550rpm. The idle in drive while stopped and off idle transition is not ideal and it’s telling me it needs a small convertor stall increase probably 2000-2500 range. I haven’t done any track testing yet, still dialling in the carb and the track here won’t open for another month. It could use a bit more base timing, but it will roast the tires from a stop and pulls hard from 3000 up to about 5000rpm. It needs headers or crossover pipe to take advantage of the cam overlap.
Sounds pretty good to do I have a holley sniper set up a I know I will have to do some dialing in. Does that cam require degreeing when you installed or just match the timing marks?
It’s best to degree the cam when installing, I advanced mine to help torque production on a heavy car. If it’s going in an A body with high enough compression, dot to dot should work fine.
I always check the cam timing when I build car engines, they're usually very close. Put in several dozen cams in diesel engines (5.9-18L) and you never degree them. You never even get cam cards or any specs on them. Never buy from anyone but oem though so that may be the difference.
This cam likes 4 advanced when degreeing if you have under 9.5 compression. Lower torque is strong. I do suggest a 2200 torque converter minimum, but a trishield converter will really pack a punch with the right setup and tune.
