Thread: My Chevy 355 has little real power - looking for suggestion on CAM change

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Originally Posted by techinspector1

"1) what about the intake?"
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU DEGREE THE CAM AFTER YOU HAVE ADVANCED/RETARDED THE CAM DURING INSTALLATION. IT IS VERY EASY TO DO IT BACKWARDS AND RETARD THE CAM WHEN YOU ACTUALLY WANTED TO ADVANCE IT.

As a side note, your present DCR is approximately 7.35:1. No wonder you can't spin the tires.

Since I have never installed a cam before, I may just leave the cam as not "degreed" and install it straight up to avoid the risks involved. I have heard that degree-ing can work, but only if you really know what you are doing with your setup, and if you don't know 100%, then you shouldn't do it. How imperative is the degree-ing in the sceme of what I am trying to accomplish?

How is the dynamic compression ratio different than normal CR, and how did you calculate that using the information I gave?

Thank you VERY much, this is helping me learn quite a bit. If I were to have 7.35 ratio, it's no wonder I can advance the ignition timing to the moon (not literally, but I can go more than I have now) and get no pinging.

Am I crazy, or does no one make a NEW quadrajet? My brief searches don't show new ones for sale anywhere. If they are so popular (also with the off-road crowd), why don't they make more? Any sources would be useful, I don't want re-man or something I have to spends years tuning. The Holley was pretty close right out of the box, but I have lots of people suggesting q-jet.

Finally, I read somewhere that Qjets were 750 and 795 CFM only, that 600 or 650 quadrajets did not exist? I think I will search here for Quadrajet posts.