I have ran 12's with the 350' SBC with 1.72' intake valve and 1.50' exhaust and ran 11's in the 1/4 with 1.94-1.50's. Larger valves are not needed you can make really good power with small valves with some porting. Seat pressures on these smaller cams can be kept below 300 open pressure and you can run 85-110 seat pressure and rev cleanly to 6500 rpm, more depending on valve weight. I really like the Howards Direct lube lifters on a solid cam Break it in with Driven Break in oil and use Molly paste on cam lobes and lifter faces.įor Hydraulic flat tappet cams I Use the Crower cam saver lifters. 050 solid flat tappet and many larger ones. Now Comp also has some solid flat tappet grinds in the high energy series that look very interesting if you want a solid. 015' head gasket and run something like the comp 268H or 270H cam. If it was my deal and I was not wanting a super fast thing I would port the heads I had on hand. Work over the heads you have if they are in good shape. It ran 13.20 with street tires while getting a very respectable 16 miles per gallon with easy driving. Put it in a 79 Malibu with a 3.31 rear gear, turbo 350, streetfighter converter. Twenty five years ago I build an engine like you describe, L65 short block, 186 heads with 2.02 intake and 1.5 exhaust, LT1 cam, GM aluminum intake, 3310 Holley. You can spend a lot of money for not a huge gain in power. For the street and the rpm you will be operating there isn't much difference.

Sure there are much better cams out there, there were in better cams in 1970 but the LT1 will run with stock springs, has a very smooth ramp to prevent valve float and helps prevent wear.Īs for heads why not use what you have? Install larger valves if you want or use the 1.94. It has the sound of the old factory muscle, it is much more responsive than the 30-30, and will out power the L79 by quite a bit. Of the three the LT1 is the best of all for a street car. I have ran the 30-30 cam, the L79 cam and the LT1 cam.

Lt-1 cam 350