What cam for 302

[baddad457]

The B cam is a very bad choice if you want any low end, It has a very short higher RPM powerband, not good for a truck.

Any of the alphabet cams are bad for an explorer engine because you need more exhaust Bias with the production heads. The letter cams have the same intake and exhaust lobe.

What you need is a cam with more exhaust duration than intake duration and around .500" lift. Keep it around 112-114 lobe sep and youll have awesome torque.

The TFS-1 is a great torquey cam, I have run it and it will give you gobs of low-midrange with GT40/GT40P heads and it has a nice idle to it as well.

Honestly if I were you, I wouldnt waste my money on a cam, the stock explorer F4TE cam is very torquey, if you wanted to go beyond that, an HO cam would do you good.

I've used both the B and Z cams and both had excellant bottom end torque. The B cam pulled from 1000 to 7500 with Canfield heads and a dual plane intake. The Z pulls from 1500 to 7000 in my 331 with a highrise dual plane sixpack setup. More lift and duration is nice to have, but hardly necessary with GT40 heads.

 

[RacinNdrummin]

i knew this was gonna come up! he is actually right, the alphabet cams are wrong for a 4x4 (on paper). BUT, the fact is... by putting a 302 in a RBV you are gaining more low end torque than anyone needs! i called the tech line for lunati when i bought my cam, the tech man told me it was a full-on drag racing cam, when i told him it was going in a 4x4, he almost stroked out! but when we discussed it and decided to install the cam 2deg. advanced (after degreeing it), he agreed it would put the power range where i wanted it! he said, "damn i never thought about using a cam like this in a 4x4 but... advancing it will work PERFECTLY!"

i am not suggesting degreeing a cam if you dont have the tools or know-how, my main point is... you are already aining so much low end over the v-6... you wont miss any the cam takes away, plus the midrange power increase will be nice!

You are right about the 5.0 in an RBV, however I wouldnt take anything a cam "tech" tells you seriously, those guys are well known for not being very knowlegable, all they wanna do is sell you a cam. Frankly, as somebody who has used "full-on drag racing cam"s, 2* of advance isnt going to make much difference at all, maybe a couple hundred RPM's difference in the curve, not anything you will really notice.

Also, you should ALWAYS degree in your cam to make sure that its timed right. It may be right from the producer, but your crank or timing set could be out by several degrees, the only way to make sure you have it timed right is to degree it in, you would be amazed at how much cam timing could vary.

I've used both the B and Z cams and both had excellant bottom end torque. The B cam pulled from 1000 to 7500 with Canfield heads and a dual plane intake. The Z pulls from 1500 to 7000 in my 331 with a highrise dual plane sixpack setup. More lift and duration is nice to have, but hardly necessary with GT40 heads.

The letter cams could work very well for heads that have a closer I/E flow ratio, thats probably the case for your setup.

Im not dogging the Letter cams, they can be good cams, but you have to have the intake and exhaust flow for them to be so. Ford prodution heads have a fairly spread out I/E ratio, therefore you need a cam that makes up for it on the exhaust side and gets the exhaust flowing a bit more.

 

[mikepotts]

i might agree with you about the tech anting to sell something, nut i told him right away that i bought the cam used, so he knew he had no sale here. i do agree about the degreeing of a racing motor, but if i was merely wanting to do a cam swap on a stock motor i dont think i would waste the time. now when i build the 331 in my shop, i will be degreeing the cam.

it is suprising how inaccurate cam grinders can be and get away with it, weve seen a 20hp increase just by getting the same cam timed correctly for the application!

 

[RacinNdrummin]

i might agree with you about the tech anting to sell something, nut i told him right away that i bought the cam used, so he knew he had no sale here. i do agree about the degreeing of a racing motor, but if i was merely wanting to do a cam swap on a stock motor i dont think i would waste the time. now when i build the 331 in my shop, i will be degreeing the cam.

it is suprising how inaccurate cam grinders can be and get away with it, weve seen a 20hp increase just by getting the same cam timed correctly for the application!

Its very true.