Hey everyone while scrolling through my notes on my phone for a few things I passed by the note I have of what cam I believe is in my 430, I don’t know the specs for it all I know is it is an aftermarket cam my dad had picked up from a friend of his back in the early to mid 2000s and put in the 430 when he was daily driving it. He doesn’t remember the specs for it and the friend he got it from doesn’t either. They both believe it was/is a TorqueTech sp1s or something close to that. If anybody could give me some insight on the cams specs or how it performs it would be greatly appreciated.
If it is the SP1S, it was designed for a stock appearing Buick 455 (Cast iron intake and exhaust manifolds) I ran that cam for many years. With right mods, it will idle well and make nice power with "stock" engine.
Thank you both for responding and thank you for the chart Mike. If you don't mind me asking Greg what mods would you suggest, I am guessing porting the intake, heads and manifolds are among the mods you are talking about but I am curious to what else you would suggest and whether or not you could share some of the times/numbers you were able to get with this cam?
The mods to getting a good idle quality is increased ignition timing at idle and ensuring that the carb is getting enough fuel at idle to give you the smoothest idle possible. I don't remember what I ran exactly with this cam, I would guess about 12.40's at 108. Its a good cam, very,very similar to TA's stock appearing cam that I ran mid 11's with.
Thank you for the response Greg. I will try to keep the timing and fuel at idle tip in mind this spring when putting the car back together. I am also really glad to hear 12's are possible that is what I am looking for with this version of the motor, I have some parts I have also assembled to build a bigger and more powerful motor in the future but I am glad with the cam that is in the motor already I can still run decent times. This year I am just wanting to get the car up and running and get it running the best times it can at the track and bracket race the car on the weekends.
Larry, I actually just recently picked up a set of untouched in the box still unassembled stage 2 SE heads. I was planning to wait and use them on a different motor however I have thought about putting them on this one. How much do you think those could help me? On that note before they would go on I would have them ported before assembling them. As well as put an sp1 and headers on the engine.
Alright, thank you. I thought that was what I had read on TA's website. I believe I am going to wait and do what I can with what's on the motor now to see what it can do and wait on using the heads until I have the other parts I need to take full advantage of them. Which at the same time gives me time to make sure everything else is up to the task because I know I have read about several guys on here making a lot of power and running pretty quick times with stage 2 heads.
Everything has to work together and you can have 2 motors that appear to be identically equipped but they perform differently because one thing is different. The cam works with the static compression to get you dynamic compression and superior head flow enhances everything else you do to the motor. It really is the key to power with any engine. I can tell you this, if your goal is to run mid 12’s with a stock headed motor, you will need good porting. I have seen cars just squeak into the 12’s with claimed stock heads, but not mid 12’s unless the car is substantially lightened. That’s a really good cam. Wasn’t that the Popular Mechanics cam?
I'm unsure if it is the popular mechanics cam. I also agree and have learned that it is all about how everything works together for how well the motor will perform. My dad taught me this from when I was little. His 455 didn't have anything real special done to it, it just had the right parts that worked well together, and for the heads it had 430 big port heads with stage 1 valves and some porting and he ran very low 11's in his 69' skylark that weighed 3600 with him in it and drove the car out to the track and back home in the early 2000's almost every week in the summer and his 69' GS with a 350 ran a best of a 13.37 also in the early 2000's. Now that I know the cam that is in my motor is a good one, I'm looking forward to getting the car running and racing it, if I decide to hold off on putting the stage 2 heads on the motor for some reason I do have another set of iron heads I could have work done on. I guess I will just have to wait and see how everything goes and do what I am able to do money wise. Everyone's advice and knowledge has been really helpful.
