For a snappy throttle response, you can't beat a great combo, high cylinder pressure, and a sharp tune.
For most of us with SBMs, street cams are gonna fall into a small range of about 210 to 230/235 range, because after that, the rpm of peak power is gonna get expensive to build reliability into, and cylinder pressure is getting harder and harder to find, cheaply.. So yur looking at about a 3>4-size cam range.
Now;
You just can't stick any of those 3>4 sizes into the same short block, expecting a power increase at the top, to not negatively affect low-rpm and throttle response. And if you start mixing cam brands between the sizes, yur just looking for heartaches.
I'm gonna try to save you weeks of time by the following few statements;
1) choose your heads first, and Lordy let them be closed chambers. But if not, then whittle the quench into line.
2) choose you cam size , to support your intended usage.
...If you intend to go racing, go get a race cam.
...If you want to idle along in parades, get a parade cam
...If you are gonna spend 90% of your time in town, get a town-cam
... If you need to drive the thing on the hiway, criminy 45 hp will get any tank A-body to 65 mph! so forget about power at 5500rpm.
... if you need a lil of this and that, pic the smallest cam that will do the job
3) run the Cylinder Pressure up to the max for the fuel that you can afford, and tune it!
4) Make sure the beast gets oil, lots and lots of oil. Put an extra capacity oilpan on it, with baffles if you like to drive like me. Oil the crap out of it; on the street you don't care about a few couple of hp lost to the pump. Yur never gonna know it!
5) if an automatic, stall it right.
The bigger the cam, usually the higher the stall
the lower the cylinder pressure, the higher the stall
If you don't stall it right, yur just gonna be frustrated beyond thinking straight.
6) gear it right. If the tires don't spin in Second Gear, it better be geared right or it's gonna be slow until it hits the cam........ again.
If the cam is too big, and the gear is too small, it's gonna powerpeak at an mph that you cannot legally drive at! Where is the advantage in that?
7) To have a snappy combo, you gotta be financially prepared to marry all the pieces of the combo, and your stated usage has got to drive every decision you make.
If your usage calls for a 210 can, then don't buy a 220 nor a 235. I guarantee that you'll be sorry.
If burning rubber to 50 mph, is on the agenda, together with snappy take off, choose the biggest SBM there is.
If hiway fuel economy is a factor, together with a snappy bottom end, then choose more cubes over a bigger cam
If fuel economy is a really really Big factor get a smaller engine. Marry the combo to the usage.
If you need an overdrive to cover all your bases, either get one, or change your stated usage.
8) if you have a financially challenged combo, then start with the stall and gears. I can't tell you how many guys will say, "I can't believe the difference 4.10s and a 2800 stall made to my stock318! I'm not suggesting BTW that you rush out and get some 4.10s....... lol
Man I was just gonna quickly dash off a couple of things, sheesh, here I am again, an hour later.
