Need a little guidance here. H/C guys pull up a seat!!

[chris308]

Originally Posted by Anti Venom

400rwhp is easy these days. Back in the early days of the LS, 400 was the magic number. That was 1999. Now a heads/cam is in the 425-475 range typically. Sleepers can go in the 400-up area. We did one a few years back that had to look and sound stock. He made 392rwhp through manifolds and an automatic. His wife did'nt even know that anything was different. He said the extra hp was from a tune

Greg, thanks for the reply, 400 all day long is good news to hear.

Qwik question, by that link I posted for patriot, can you tell around what size cam i can go with w/o having to flycut pistons or anything like that. What would be better for tame idle 230 or 240 duration? I am kinda interested in EnglandGreens line of signature cams. the monster (230) or the whiplash (240). I'm open to other suggestions though of course.

[Gannet]

For a tame idle, 230 and 240 are both pretty much out of the question. And if tame idle is a consideration, Stephen's cams may not be the right choice. To quote from him:

These cams will not be your usual grandfather-type baby cams - they are all loud, obstreperous, will shake your Vette and make your neighbours hate you. With the exception of the Bunny Cam, none of them are for the faint of heart.

224 is probably the upper limit for a tame idle. For a stock-like idle, more like 214-216.

To put it in perspective, your car has a 196 now. A C5 Z06 is a 204. A C6ZO6 is a 210. A 230+ is a seriously large cam.

What really counts for idle quality is overlap. The longer the duration and/or the smaller the LSA, the more overlap. If all we cared about was power, most of us would be running 110 or even 108 overlaps. Instead, your typical aftermarket LSx cam is a 114 LSA. Why? To try and keep a halfway-decent idle quality. The cams typically run in LSx engines are quite large compared to what would be run in say, a Gen1 small-block Chevy. That means they end up having a lot of overlap, so they tend to have wide LSAs to try and make up for that.

Your stock cam has -30.5 overlap at .050. That makes for a pretty smooth idle. The 224/228/114, typically considered the upper end of the "nice" LSx street cams, is at -2. Big difference, and the 224/228 *will* have a noticeable lope. A classic "230" cam is the LG G5X2, which is a 232/240. On a 114, this has 8 degrees of overlap, which is a lot for a street cam. The tradional upper limit for a nice driver is 0, and that is still going to be a looooong way from a stock idle.

[chris308]

I guess i should define my def of "tame idle" as long as the car doesn't stall out at a light or slow takes offs, and as long i can still use my a/c at a stop and it doesn't die i'm ok with that.

I have an MN6 btw.

Oy, this is hurting my head

Thanks again for dropping some tech knowledge on me Mr. Gannet
it's slowly absorbing into my brain...

[Gannet]

Originally Posted by chris308

I guess i should define my def of "tame idle" as long as the car doesn't stall out at a light or slow takes offs, and as long i can still use my a/c at a stop and it doesn't die i'm ok with that.

Oh, in THAT case it's all in the tune. People are running very large cams and still meeting those criteria - WITH the right tune, which means done by the right guy.

[chris308]

awesome

[chris308]

a little update to my own post....

I have narrowed my cam decision down a little to the following sticks:

224R
228R
G5X2
G5X3

all those i would probably get a 114LSA or 112LSA if its not too difficult to tune.

by any chance would anyone local have one of those cams or something comparable to those that i can check out personally, maybe get a ride in it to see how it behaves??

Any opinions on those cams?

[ynkedad]

Originally Posted by Anti Venom

He made 392rwhp through manifolds and an automatic. His wife did'nt even know that anything was different. He said the extra hp was from a tune