1979 350 camaro cam advice

[GTS Turbo]

Ok long story cut down to a length easy to digest....

My camaro had 2 blow valves. Had the heads worked on and valves reseated etc...
Anyway engine back together and we discovered the cam shaft is.... well shafted.

So going to upgrade the cam shaft, lifters and push rods.

Anyone got any cam recommendations? I like lumpy choppy cams. Its a 350 with a 3 speed auto. Heads are standard.

Thanks

[shovelheadrob]

No point going with a "lumpy" cam if everything else is stock, if you want performance start with a set of headers & decent exhaust system, then attack the intake side of things, you don't say what you have at the moment but assuming it's stock a decent dual plane intake & a 650 Holley will help wake it up, then you can start to think about a performance cam as anything noticeably larger than stock will need better valve springs & will work better with more compression & better heads or porting.
HTH

[GTS Turbo]

Thanks for the reply. It is stock except for an exhaust (don't know the make as it was already on the car)

Car was back firing through the air intake which slowly got worse. We took the head off and found 2 valves on each side had gone.
Got a place to sort the head and reseat the valves.

Put the car back together and it still wasn't right so we ran it with the covers off and found the lifters not lifting at all on 1 valve and little movement on some others and a few moving correctly.

So it needs a new cam. Don't have the cash for any other work as I spend a load getting the heads done when I should of just got performance heads really.

Still cos the camshaft has to come put I thought I may as well put a better cam in and upgrade other bits in the future.

[shovelheadrob]

Something like this http://www.compperformancegroupstores.com/store/me... will work without having to change too much, maybe the valve springs, but will be OK with the rest stock.

[roscobbc]

You should buy new pushrods and rockers at same time - rockers could well be shot too. Its worthwhile upgrading to the roller versions. Stick with hydraulic flat tappet cam as a roller version will be more expensive and of limited benefit for your application. As you have an auto box and we don't know what year the car is (if late 60's/early 70's - lo po late 70's early 80's) you will run the risk of making the thing perform like a stone at lower speeds if the cam is too radical and you don't change torque converter and rear axle ratio. Most people seem look at recommendations given for cam choices for their specific vehicles and make the mistake of thinking "if a bit more is good, well, we'll have some more" and choose a more radical cam than wise for their application. The 'thinking' person will actually look at suggestions and step things back a bit for more driveability.

[ringram]

Yuck, that 212 cam is almost pointless.
IMO keep the duration short, as pointed out above your potential airflow is limited by stock components.
BUT that doesnt mean a cam wont give you a good bit more. Just bear in mind the carb and dizzy might need optimising for the new characteristics.
If is was me Id probably look at 216/220 duration with a 110 lsa or similar. So low duration, but tight lobe separation. That will sound nice and lumpy but power will be from idle and in the standard operating range for stock stuff. You will need new rockers too.

So how about looking at a set of rollers.. maybe you will need valve springs too.

Where do you stop?..

[roscobbc]

The OP isn't even going to start unless he gives more details about the vehicle - far too many variables without this info.