Reply to "Cam & Intake Manifold Replacement"

> Boss Rods

What's the shape on the head of the bolt? I ask because a lot of previous
owners really have no clue and claim parts to be Boss which turn out
otherwise.

> Boss 351 Heads (D1-2X)
> SpeedPro 0.030" over 10:1 Pistons (Boss design)

Something wrong there. Boss pistons are domed and would give a much higher
compression ratio with the Boss closed chamber heads. Are the pistons flat
tops and forged?

> Crane 272H10 grind cam
> Crane Gold Roller Rockers and roller lifters

Something wrong there as well. Roller lifters are not compatible with
that flat tappet cam.

> Crane 272H10 grind cam

That is a hydraulic flat tappet cam with specs of 216 degrees duration at
0.050" lift (272 degrees advertised), 0.524" lift with 110 degrees lobe
spearation angle. I ran your combo through Vizard's cam selection guidelines
and got the following:

street performance 50 deg overlap, 107 LSA, 264 degrees seat duration
street/strip 70 deg overlap, 107 LSA, 284 degrees seat duration

with as much lift as is consistent with your reliabilty goals. The 107
degrees LSA will give you the rumpety rump idle you're after. By way of
comparison, the stock CJ cam has 46 degrees of overlap and the Boss 351
grind has 58 degrees. You'll likely want a cam somewhere between the
50 and 70 degrees overlap range above. There have been a lot of issues
with flat tappet cam lobes going bad causing many to go with roller cams.
If you do decide on a hydraulic roller, something like Comps 3315 lobe
profile would be what you are after. It's a medium aggressive lobe.
Have a friend running that in a 372C stroker and he is quite happy with
it.

> Headers with 2" Stainless Mufflers (similar to PI Power Packs0

Be aware that a restrictive exhaust will upset a narrow lobe separation
cam more than one with a wider LSA. You need a good exhaust with 107
lobe separation cam. In a recent test of a mild street 408C, we lost
50 HP through the Euro GTS mufflers. Gained nearly all of it all back
with Magnaflows.

> Edelbrock 4V Performer Intake
> I think I have a solid base for a much higher HP engine and was thinking
> about a Blue Thunder Intake and changing the cam.

Out of the box, the Blue Thunder was a disappointment on the dyno.
Unported, it was down 40 HP to a ported Ford aluminum low rise dual
plane (Boss type with Holley carb pattern) on our mild street 408C.
After porting, the Blue Thunder outflowed the Ford intake by quite
a bit but we didn't get a chance to verify it on the dyno. The Holley
Strip Dominator did best. If you go with the Blue Thunder intake,
you may want to send it to someone like Dave McLain who can bring
the 4 bad ports up to match the 4 good ones. It's worth a bunch of
power.

> I may be running a little rich as the car has always had a fairly
> strong exhaust smell.

Have an O2 bung welded into your header collector. It will allow
you to very easily tune the carb with a wideband O2 sensor. A tuned
carb will get better fuel economy, make better power and increase
engine life (no excess fuel washing oil of the cylinder walls, no
lean mixtures holing a piston, minimal carbon build up, etc.).

Dan Jones