LA 360 Cam Degree help

[Chapter2]

Im building an LA 360 for the street to drop in a 2wd short bed truck. half ton, 3.55 rear, automatic transmission. im using magnum heads, keith black pistons over 0.030, crane cam with 1.6 ratio rockers, the lift is .498/.527. compression is at 9.668 with a double roller chain in the front. my question is this, all things considered, the crank gear has a 4 degree retard, 0, and 4 degree advance keyway on it.. for street rod use and bettering performance, is it necessary to advance it to the 4 degree keyway? (the crane tech rep said yes, advance it, and run no more than a 2500 stall converter, for this combo will drastically increase low end torque.) and if so, what do i have to degree my camshaft to? any help is appreciated. i hope i included enough info to help make a decision. thanks for any help !!

Justin

[dwc43]

You don't have to use 4*. You can set it at anything you want. I would not use that sprocket key way to degree it with anyways. Get the Mopar cam key package and a comp cams degree wheel set and it will have the instructions in it you need to properly degree the cam.

[70AARCuda]

you should not just advance the cam 4 degrees....you need to degree the cam then make adjustments as needed.


alot of cams have the advance built into them with check out with the zero keyway...

[John Kunkel]

Read up on degreeing the cam:

http://books.google.com/books?id=QuN...um=3&ct=result

Most of the cams I have degreed have been 4° advanced when installed on the factory pin/key. I always assumed this is to allow for chain stretch. With a 3-keyway lower gear, using the 4° advanced keyway would likely result in having the cam 8° advanc

[Chapter2]

okay. . interesting. i appreciate the responses thusfar. so how would i know if my cam has a built in advance? and if yall dont mind explaining.. how exactly does that work? ive never heard of that before.. still young and learning =)

[dwc43]

Get a degree wheel kit from comp cams and check it installed straight up against your cam card. That will tell you everything you need to know.

[Chapter2]

do yall think its worth the time and effort to even degree the cam for street application? a few HP might not be worth it since im not taking it to the track on a regular basis.. im still new at this, i appreciate the feed back!

[John Kunkel]

You probably won't see any performance gains by degreeing the cam and correcting minor variations but the experience gained is worth the effort IMHO.

[Chapter2]

what exactly does degreeing a cam do ? or , whats the purpose should i say..

[Tarrbabe]

you get 100 different answers. I put a Crane 284/484 cam in my 340. Didn't degree it and it sounded like a stock cam but pulled strong from 2000 up. I was running a stock 340 converter that stalled at 2300. I later tore it down and degreed the cam to find it was installed at 8 degrees advanced. I ran it that way and loved the bottom end and mid-range.
I must stress that this can't be considered a benchmark. This was something that happen to me and worked for what I liked.
I could have set it up to 0 or 2 degrees and would have love the top end charge but I had a car that weighed 3800 lbs and it worked for me. I also had an 8 3/4 with several pigs to use. 2.83/3.23/4.30/and a 4.89.

[Chapter2]

okay cool. i appreciate all the input you guys gave me. i will prob just isntall it with the cam and crank gear dots lined up, and #1 at TDC. right now my tires are 31" all terrain looking tread tires. im going to replace them with Radial T/A tires. . prob 28 or 29".. with the 3.55 rear end, that alone will help turn the back end a little better i think and help with acceleration.