289 cam choice help

Ive got a 1967 cougar with a 289,4bbl (600cfm)edelbrock performer rpm aluminum intake, headers,flow masters, stock 289 heads 4bbl, auto trans , with an 3.00 non locking rear end.

ill eventually upgrade to a 3.55 or 3.73 gear.

i need some advice for a camshaft. I dont drag race i just like a smooth running car, and highway driver, i would rather have reliability than anything else. should i just go with a stock cam? any suggestions. I was thinking the lower gear would give me enough grunt...thanks.

Welcome to the forum. I'll let one of the engine gurus quote cam specs to you, but I will say you won't want to go nuts on the cam choice. A little bigger hydraulic cam will work well with your intake and heads, but too much cam will lose you some bottom end and be a bear with a stock convertor.

I've always ordered cams from PAW, because their house cams are cheap, and are actually Crane cams. When I picked out the one for the 302 in my '27, they had a chart that listed 5 cams, from stock to wild, and I picked number 2. It was actually too mild, so I moved up to number 3 and it was much better. I know that wasn't very scientific, more like ordering at a Chinese Restaurant, but their catalog outlined some characteristics, like rough idle, etc, and I went by that.

Like I said, one of the guys will give you the straight scoop, I'm sure.

Don

There, Denny showed up in the meantime with some good info.

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Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Welcome to the forum. I'll let one of the engine gurus quote cam specs to you, but I will say you won't want to go nuts on the cam choice. A little bigger hydraulic cam will work well with your intake and heads, but too much cam will lose you some bottom end and be a bear with a stock convertor.

I've always ordered cams from PAW, because their house cams are cheap, and are actually Crane cams. When I picked out the one for the 302 in my '27, they had a chart that listed 5 cams, from stock to wild, and I picked number 2. It was actually too mild, so I moved up to number 3 and it was much better. I know that wasn't very scientific, more like ordering at a Chinese Restaurant, but their catalog outlined some characteristics, like rough idle, etc, and I went by that.

Like I said, one of the guys will give you the straight scoop, I'm sure.

Don

There, Denny showed up in the meantime with some good info.

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what were the specs on the number 3 you went with?

also 1 other question..what is the specs on a factory 289 cam?

Stock specs for your cam were approxiamately; .368 int valve lift and .381 exh lift. Duration was around .266 int and .244 exh. Old school, so you can have a little leeway with today's manufacturers. Stick with Comp, Crane, Crower and/or which ever you feel good with. .425-.440 lift on intake. Try to bump the exh to .435-.450. keep total duration to about 272 and not much more. Watch the .050 duration numbers, they can get a little rumpy and I suggest with your set up, 220-225 on the .050 part of the cam card.

[QUOTE=rustycarr]what were the specs on the number 3 you went with?



I wish I remembered, but that was about 15 years ago. Mine was also used with a stickshift, so that sort of allows for a little more cam than a tranny with a stock convertor. Go with the info the guys have provided, they know their stuff.


Don

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Originally Posted by rustycarr

Ive got a 1967 cougar with a 289,4bbl (600cfm)edelbrock performer rpm aluminum intake, headers,flow masters, stock 289 heads 4bbl, auto trans , with an 3.00 non locking rear end.

ill eventually upgrade to a 3.55 or 3.73 gear.

i need some advice for a camshaft. I dont drag race i just like a smooth running car, and highway driver, i would rather have reliability than anything else. should i just go with a stock cam? any suggestions. I was thinking the lower gear would give me enough grunt...thanks.

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With a tiny little 289, stock heads and a 3.00 gear, why on God's green earth would you bolt on a "RPM" manifold??????? It's all wrong, even if you change gears, which, by the way, should have been the first thing you did to the car. Now you want to compound your error with a cam?????? STOP!!!!!
There is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to this motor to make the car faster until you let go of some coin and step up to good heads and headers with a free-flowing dual exhaust system.

The 3.73 gear would be an excellent addition, along with a little looser converter, something like 2,000 to 2,500 stall. That's all you should do to the car until you get some heads.

Matter of fact, now that I have thought about this for a few minutes, I would scrounge around and find a rebuildable 351W to replace the 289. With more cubic inches, a gear, a converter, good heads, headers, duals and a cam which matches the static compression ratio of the motor, you'd be headed in the right direction in my humble opinion. Keep the 600, It'll work great on the 351.

i have used chet herberts cams for yrs. i ordered this particular cam by the dozen. it is 275 adv int 475 lift, 285 exh adv and 500 lift worked well for me, went 14.0s in a 64 fairlane. installed several in customers engs and none ever complained. it has about 220 @ .050 duration, and 225 @.050on the exhaust, and cheap. never lost a lobe or lifter.

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Originally Posted by techinspector1

With a tiny little 289, stock heads and a 3.00 gear, why on God's green earth would you bolt on a "RPM" manifold??????? It's all wrong, even if you change gears, which, by the way, should have been the first thing you did to the car. Now you want to compound your error with a cam?????? STOP!!!!!
There is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to this motor to make the car faster until you let go of some coin and step up to good heads and headers with a free-flowing dual exhaust system.

The 3.73 gear would be an excellent addition, along with a little looser converter, something like 2,000 to 2,500 stall. That's all you should do to the car until you get some heads.

Matter of fact, now that I have thought about this for a few minutes, I would scrounge around and find a rebuildable 351W to replace the 289. With more cubic inches, a gear, a converter, good heads, headers, duals and a cam which matches the static compression ratio of the motor, you'd be headed in the right direction in my humble opinion. Keep the 600, It'll work great on the 351.

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whoowww there wells fargo... this is how i purchased the car, it had all the above mentioned except the previous owner had installed a comp cams 268h cam in the motor and didnt know what he was doing and wiped the cam out. (tighned rockers as tight as he could) im willing to sell the intake if its too much for the car, but the 351 option isnt happening. as for the heads im sure they will get me down the road.. as i mentioned im just a highway cruiser not a drag racer. thanks for the laugh though...

i have heard to keep the duration @ 50 under 220 and lobe seperation between 112-114. sound right?

Not bad.....you have small flow capabilities with your heads. Compression isn't super and it doesn't need to be with today's gas. My guidelines are as about as big as you want to go for the future change out with the gears and still give you driveability in most if not all conditions.

You would probably be happier with the Performer intake instead of the Performer RPM... Matter of fact, Edelbrock has a cam designed to go with that manifold and a 500 CFM carb. Works good. Getting advice on cam selection usually opens up a large spectrum of different cams and combos to try. Personally I've used a couple of the Edelbrock packages. If you study them, and get the one that actually matches what you expect out of the engine they work out quite well and for the most part will perform as advertised. If you decide to upgrade the heads down the road sometime, they also make a great set of heads to match the cam, carb, and intake package!!!!

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Originally Posted by rustycarr

whoowww there wells fargo... this is how i purchased the car, it had all the above mentioned except the previous owner had installed a comp cams 268h cam in the motor and didnt know what he was doing and wiped the cam out. (tighned rockers as tight as he could) im willing to sell the intake if its too much for the car, but the 351 option isnt happening. as for the heads im sure they will get me down the road.. as i mentioned im just a highway cruiser not a drag racer. thanks for the laugh though...

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If you had mentioned the fragged cam in your first post, I would have told you to completely disassemble the motor and clean it thoroughly. If you don't, You're gonna continue to have problems with all the shrapnel in the motor.Then I would have suggested a stock cam. Been there, done that.

Sorry if I was a little course with you. It's just that I see this over and over and over where these guys have a more or less stock combo and think an "RPM" manifold is gonna make their stocker into a race car. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Every engine build needs to be a well thought out combination of parts to achieve a certain goal and 99% of these guys don't need to make power over 5,500 rpm's. They don't have the rest of the combination that will support the increased volume of a RPM manifold. Mixture velocity slows down and cylinder packing is much less than it was with the stock manifold. There must be someone down at the Sonic Drive In giving out this information that a RPM will make power if bolted to a turd.

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Originally Posted by techinspector1

If you had mentioned the fragged cam in your first post, I would have told you to completely disassemble the motor and clean it thoroughly. If you don't, You're gonna continue to have problems with all the shrapnel in the motor.Then I would have suggested a stock cam. Been there, done that.

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no problem, and sorry i didnt give the whole layout ,I did clean the motor and im in the process of re assembly, i thought about a bigger motor but this is the original ,, so where you suggesting a stock cam or was i miss reading?

Check the swap meets and ebay for a good used 289/302 stock Ford aluminum manifold, it'll match your heads better. That's what I'm running on the 289 in the Mustang. The 289 won't rotate the earth, but it makes for a decent little cruiser. I'm running a Comp cams 268H, Hedman headers, and a Holley 650DP. Also a Mallory dual point changed over to a Petronix unit with Taylor spiral cores. It's got a 3 speed behind it now which I plan to change to a 4 or 5 speed.

In your first post:
"I dont drag race i just like a smooth running car, and highway driver, i would rather have reliability than anything else. should i just go with a stock cam? any suggestions. I was thinking the lower gear would give me enough grunt...thanks."

I absolutely agree that a gear is the first thing the car needs for improved acceleration and the second thing it needs is a looser converter. That is, if improved acceleration is what you want, at the expense of reduced fuel mileage. From what I've read, the motor is stock with 10.0:1 static compression ratio, so it will support more cam like Ken said above. He used common sense and kept the cam timing conservative for good street manners. Thing is, with an aftermarket cam, depending on the grind, you're raising the rpm level at which the motor is efficient, farther and farther away from streetability. Usually the first or second cam in the grinder's catalog will be plenty for an otherwise stock motor.

It sounds like from your statement that I quoted above, that you just want a cruiser type motor. In that case, I'd leave the gear and converter as they are and install a stock cam and lifters from the Ford parts counter.

thanks guys here is some helpful info i found: might help someone on a search.

Cams with up to 220� of duration (measured at 0.050" cam lift) are usually best for stock unmodified engines. Once you go beyond 220� of duration, intake vacuum starts to drop and idle quality suffers.

Another spec that affects driveability is the relative timing of the intake and exhaust valves. This can be expressed either as "valve overlap" (the time during which the intake and exhaust valves are both open) or "lobe separation" (the number of degrees or angle between the centerlines of the intake and exhaust lobes). Decreasing the lobe separation increases overlap, while increasing the separation decreases overlap. Most stock replacement cams with durations of less than 200� will have lobe separations of 112� to 114�. Higher duration cams for mid-range performance typically have 110� to 112� of lobe separation. With racing cams, you'll find lobe separations that range from 106� to 108�.

Overlap occurs when the intake valve starts to open before the exhaust valve has finished closing. Increasing overlap can be a desirable thing in a higher rpm performance application because the outgoing exhaust actually helps scavenge the cylinder to draw more air and fuel into the combustion chamber. But too much overlap at low rpm kills low-end torque and throttle response by excessively reducing intake vacuum.