My 2 cents FWIW...........
On big blocks, the stock magnum cam (440 4 speed '69 Coronet R/T with 3:54 Dana) worked very well and sounded good. The engine was stock other than Appliance headers and electronic ignition.
Went like hell.
On my '69 Super Bee 440 4 speed 3:54 Dana as well, it had a stock other than the cam in a '71 440 H.P. and it was the street hemi grind purple shaft Direct Connection cam.
It sounded and performed great.
My brother had a '70 Challenger with a 440 six pack (original) and an automatic and 4:10 Dana with a 509 Direct Connection cam and that car was unbelievably fast the way it was set up.
It had a B&M tranny and a 5000 stall converter in it as well and headers and electronic ignition.
All else was stock including the heads and compression on all engines, no porting or anything other than a high volume oil pump.
I don't have much experience with small blocks, but I do have a Direct Connection 484 cam in my Dart Sport 360 that has a Weiand intake, '73 340 manifolds, and stock compression
(7.8 :1?) as well as everything else in the engine.
It has 3:55 gears and a 4 speed as well and it goes pretty good, and runs well.
I think that if I had more compression and some better heads, it would be a lot better.
That said, I think that the old Direct Connection cams and timing sets flat out work well, and do so even if the compression is lower than intended for the application, and the stock cams were well designed for the engines as well.........
