Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What Cam grind

for a 5.3ls in my truck. I finally got around to pulling off the heads, 2 broken lifters 1 whole one down in the oil pan, and the roller off this one in the pan also.



A member here sent me a stock camshaft, but I will pull the motor out and replace the bearings and rings so maybe a new cam. The cylinder walls show no noticeable wear so I'm hoping I'll only have to hone it. I haven't built a Chevy engine since I was a Teen in high school.

232/240 .595/.607 112 LSA

Make it thump and bounce. lol

I think on one engine I used a 327 350 HP cam, on a ford I used what they called an RV grind.

Been a long time since I did any rebuilds.

What's the intended use- - - -racing, trailer towing, general transportation, or a combination of several of them? In very general terms, any cam with much over a 270 degree "advertised" duration will have a nasty idle lope and very little low end pulling power. The biggest mistakes most engine builders make is "too much cam" and too much carburetor / fuel system. Doing race engine stuff on a street vehicle is stupid squared!

Check out the Comp Cams "High Energy" series of cams, but stay away from anything above the 268H.

Just every day driving, for the most part, pull a 12ft trailer once in a while.

Summit has what you want. Tell them what you have, what you want to do with it and know what your compression ratio is.

They’ll fix you up.

Call the Comp Cams tech line with your engine size, comp ratio, truck weight, intended use, transmission, final drive ratio. They will give you the part number(s) for your application.

In the olden days Edelbrock had a matched RV cam and intake. I don't know what you use on todays injected cars and trucks. The advice to call the companies tech line is a good one. are you able to do some kind of AFM delete?

I doubt you need more cam, and i doubt it'll run right with a stock computer. A stock 5.3 is dangerous in a short bed square body. I know because I borrowed my son's for a month. In a full size it's plenty of engine for daily driving and towing a 12ft trailer once in a while. I know, because that's what my son does with his to save gas money and leave Big Green parked.

That said, he's working on a 6.0 for Ol' Rosey, and I'm not gonna say a word. When he's done I get that 5.3 to swap into my '84 Monte SS.

3/4 all day long

Ass mentioned above call the tech line for the cam company of your choice. they'll ask what they need to know to get you the cam you need.

My son used to have a nice 2004 regular cab SWB chevy with 5.3 Auto and 3:42 posi. He had electric fans installed, cold air intake, a set of long tube headers got rid of the cats. Then had it tuned with laptop. No internal engine changes. That truck would run like it had 350 plus HP 350 in it.

I can't stand that old cam descriptor.

I'd look at something like this:

https://cammotion.com/camshafts/5-3-stage-1-ls-truck-camshaft-200-204-114-3/

that's what I'm looking for.

Put a racing cam and 3” flowmasters

And these

coined by Ed Winfield in the days of the Model T...

And nearly meaningless.

that cam looks about perfect for your truck... about the same as a 206/210 (@.050 lift) would'a been in an ol school flat tappet in a gen 1 350, but with more LSA (114) for a bit more top end, and to the keep the emission tuning parameters in the ECM happy...