Any thoughts from members on which 455 cam is better suited for a 500 hp street engine with p/s and a/c? 288-98H or the 310.
Need a lot more information than that. You have aluminum heads? Stage1 or 2? Are they ported? The 310 is a single pattern cam, more suited to an engine with good heads. The 288-98 has a 15* split between intake and exhaust duration. It's more suited to stock or mildly ported heads.
I’ve listened to a 455 with the 310 cam a few years back at nationals, but it had fuel injection which kinda smoothed the idle out some. Just don’t want a super lumpity cam.
Last I heard, TA heads are on back order, so if you don't have them already, you may have a problem. Then the choice is simple. The TA 288-98 has the 15* split, and it's on a 116* LSA. It will have a better idle than the 310.
I’m quite a ways from building the engine right now. I have a 288-98H cam, but a 310 cam was just posted on forum that I got in line for. Gotcha! Thanks for your knowledge man!…Lars
The stock head flow really likes the increased exhaust duration to help out the weaker exhaust flow. Most Buick cams are split duration for that reason. https://www.v8buick.com/index.php?threads/cam-info-desired-stg1-vs-stg2-heads.389642/ The better your heads are, the less you need this although there is still some benefit even with good heads. The Stage2 exhaust port is much better, and a single duration cam can work well. You'll see that in some of the cam descriptions like the TA 290H. They mention the Stage2 heads. https://www.taperformance.com/proddetail.asp?prod=TA_290H
the extra exhaust duration has little effect on bad head flow. also the wider 116 lsa would not help poor flowing heads but the tighter 110 lsa will help bad flowing heads.
The OP stated that he wants to use TA heads, which he doesn't have. He also doesn't want a lumpy idle. Seems to me he isn't ready to choose either cam. Not much point in even talking about the differences. By the time he is ready, I'm sure there will be better choices for him.
Makes no sense. They've been making the S2 heads for how long now? Somewhere around 30 years I think. It seems at least one person @ TA would've learned how to do the CNC part of it in that much time. Would be a significant labor cost savings along with not having to depend on others to do the work. Have learned several trades over the years due to getting tired of waiting on and paying other people to do stuff I could do.
The owners where I work at can't run the 6 color printing press I run I would not expect owners at TA to be able to do the same, it takes a lot of training to run a cnc machine correctly. The one owner did run a printing press years ago but it was a small machine, my 6 color is computer operated and plus running color takes some skill. If you don't keep up with the technology with newer equipment you lose the skill, you know how still you just can't run the newer machine. My owners know how they just can't run the machines and I think this is where TA is at, need a great machine operator to run great heads. The real experts are the workers.
