Hi everyone,

I am looking for some cam suggestions. I have read a lot about the different cam choices but most post just say I like this or that cam... they are not very specific. I am looking for cam suggestions but am more concerned with why you like this or that cam, not just that you like it.

I currently have the 268 Torker cam from engnbldr with his street RV head. I never really noticed an improvement with this cam. The truck seems to run about the same in the low end and midrange but goes flat sooner than stock up top. I know that there was no improvement when driving up-hill on the freeway which is where I was hoping to see improvements. I want to know if anyone else has had the same experience with this cam.

I am looking for other cam suggestions. I want to know exactly where in the rpm range you saw improvements with each cam, where you had a trade-off and how much improvement was felt. If there is a cam you don't like, that information is useful as well.

More about my set-up...

I am in the process of a rebuild. I have 94mm Wiseco forged pistons and will be running about 10.2:1 compression or perhaps a bit more. Fully balanced rotating assembly. I have a street RV head from engnbldr with his oversized valves and a doug thorely header with 2.25 inch exhaust. I will be running factory efi unless I experience problems, in which case I will switch to megasquirt.

I am looking for midrange improvements. I consider midrange to be 2500-4500 rpms. The truck will see 6000rpms so I don't want to sacrifice top end, but it will also see low rpms and offroading so I don't want to take away from the low end too much either. If I have to choose low end (below 2000rpms) or top end (above 4500 rpms) I would probably go with top end though.

To recap, my questions are:

1) Has anyone else had the same experience as me with the engnbldr 268 cam?
2) What are your suggestions for a midrange (2500-4500) cam?

 

were you stock when you installed the cam? in my case, adding the cam to my own version of the airbox mod, headers, 2.25 exhaust+ gave a noticeable boost (everything else is stock). especially climbing the peaks out here, which is why i did it in the first place. course i'm also not concerned about the top end, pulling around 3500+ is more to my liking.
although i followed ted's advice and i'm only at about 7 btdc, i plan on running that out a bit next summer and seeing if the increase power others have found at 10-12 is true.

 

I was not stock. In addition to the cam I had a street RV with oversized stainless valves from engnbldr, a doug thorley header, 2.25" exhaust and intake. I know that a lot of people here seem to have success with the 268/Torkr cam but I never really felt much. I may have had other problems though.

 

I run a TRD level 2 cam on my 22R with a weber 38, ported head/intake, LCE header and a 2.25" exhaust.

This is a midrange cam and you can tell it really starts to pull at about 3000rpm. This works well for a highway truck, as in mine cruising at highway speeds puts me just a hair above 3000rpm in that sweet spot. I have never really felt a flat spot at the top end. I dont recall my exact timing, but it is greater than stock (10-12 maybe?). This setup allows me to achieve highway speeds easily with 4.10 gears and 31s. Bottom end power might not be as spectacular, and for lots of slow off-road use I sometimes wish I would have went with a TRD stage 1 or a Torker cam. Another thing about the midrange cam is that I think it may sacrifice some fuel economy compared to a stock or milder cam. I would really like to dyno this engine sometime to see just how much (or little) power can be had with this setup.

 

I also bought an engine builder street RV head and torker 268 cam.

I had built a flow bench so that I could port the head, so I got to test it as it was delivered. I found that the exhaust port only showed a modest improvement over stock and the intake ports actually had slightly less flow than stock.

The cam that was delivered as I measured it on the car did not have nearly the advertised lift. and was only slightly more than stock. engine builder refunded me for the cost of the cam with no questions though.

after finding this out it would not suprise me to hear your findings.

I will say that I was able to get much better flow from the exhaust ports without significant modification due to the fact that the port floor was higher and allowed for a more favorable short side radius. I went whole hog on the intake ports and completely redesigned them. I was able to gain nearly 60% more flow. These gains in the head combined with the new cam that I selected; crane cam grind #T20-272-2-10, resulted in big gains in power. It is a little flat right off idle, but over 2000 it goes well and 3000rpm - 5000rpm it screams. and will pull right past 6000rpm.

I don't think you are going to be able to get the gains you want without some fuel system upgrades. I am currently working on a megasquirt but have already got bigger injectors and AFM as well as bigger fuel pump and adjustable fuel pressure regulator.

You can check out the work I've done on this thread

 

I would contact Crower Cams in San Diego. They have always advertised to call them and they will recommend a cam based on your vehicle and power train attributes and what you expect. I think they still do regrinds. What is your tire size and gearing? If you have larger than 31" tires, you will have trouble getting performance out of the truck unless you change your gears or move to smaller tires. Some on this web site seem to think they can run 33" tires on stock gears and engine mods will results in miracles.

 

i run the street rv head w/ 261c and it runs pretty good from 2500 on up, pulls 75-80mph all day long w/ 33 mudders and 4.88's