LT1 cam in third gen

[thenuge876]

Ive been looking around on thirdgen.org a lot and have seen a lot of people putting LT1 cams into their engines. What are the possible benefits of doing this, or is it just preference? What other parts are needed (lifters, etc obviously)?

[Trash man]

its to wake up the car but unless u have done chip burning and some port work, it should wait till u have the supporting componets. also chip burning is required

edit: oops i just notice u have a 350 tpi motor

[thenuge876]

does it make more of a difference with the 350 in there, or would head work and stuff still be needed? I want to do some more exhaust/ intake work first, but I figured if somewhere along the line I could pick one up for a cheaper price I mgiht want to do that to hold on to.

[fastTa]

It would be a worthless swap. From what I can dig up, your cam specs out to 202/207 @.050", .404"/.415", 114.5 LSA. The 1995-1997 LT1 camshaft, the larger of the two factory LT1 camshafts, specs out at 205/207 @.050", .447/.459", 117 LSA.

So as you can see the power gains would be negligible if any at all. The increased lift may give you a little stronger torque curve(5-15lb/ft maybe), but the decrease in overlap will negate any power gains midrange and up top. Lots of work for very minimal power increase.

[thenuge876]

ok, thanks for the info, i was just wondering what the difference was between the two really. Ill keep looking around for things that would suit me better, but like i said before there is still a bunch of other stuff to be done first.

[Trash man]

id look at the LT4 hot cam if u wanna do one, but ur heads will prob have to be milled. only reason the LT1 is a popular swap is cuz of us TBI guys and our peanut cam.

[thenuge876]

yeah i think thats what i fouund after doing a little more research on third gen. I would probably be looking into head stuff too if i was gonna go with a larger cam. There were two stock cams for the 86's and mine has the hotter one in it, so i wasnt sure if the LT1 would make much of a difference at all. But ill check out the LT4 one that seems to be popular here.