I currently have a 235/239-600/580-113+4 cam in my truck that was spec'ed out for my setup by Jones Cam Designs. I was reading Maximum Boost the other day and noticed that it says several times that there is really no better cam to run than a stock one for a turbo application. I also talked to kbracing96 and he was telling me about a guy on LS1tech that made over 900rwhp on a Z06 cam on a twin turbo 408 setup. How would you guys compare the Z06 cam to the one I currently have?

 

the 02 z06 cam is just a step under the gt2-3 cam that was made for the radix.
not just the turbo guys on tech is making high numbers with that cam and boost.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking that I may want to go with a little smaller cam. It would do several things: I could drop my idle RPM back to stock, it would bring my DCR up, less lift means extended valve spring life, better gas mileage...I don't care about revving to the moon, as it stands right now I'm shifting at 5900 and 5700, I'll bring that down more if I have to...

 

I would be looking into the Thunder Racing reverse split cam with 227/224 .569/.563 114 LSA. Good power has been made with the LS6 cam, but I think that there are better options.

 

where's that at, I'd like to read up on it

 

I like the Z06 cam with turbo boost for sure. It picked up a ton of power compared to the hotcam. I've never compared to the stock cam, but the hotcam had way more duration, less lift, and a 112LSA.

This is all for a 4.8L mind you, so with over 100 more cubic inches I think it's a bit to small to take advantage of it. A stock style cam is fine and works well with turbos, that's been proven time and time again, but what I think Corky Bell was talking about was for stock cubes. Stay with a factory style cam with stock-ish cubes. You don't have stock cubes, so I say you need something bigger.

So one dude made 900rwhp with a z06 cam and another made 700rwhp with a single GT67 and another made 1000rwhp with a stock crank...let me know when 10 people do it.

 

Chris,
I am not sure if the cam would be a good choice for psi, but the cam I developed while I was at Katech picked up 40 ft-lbs on a bone stock CTS-V. It is nothing more than a tight center, 112 LSA, 02 LS6 cam, intake is advanced to 107. I think it might be a little to steep of a DCR for you to run, but it would sure be fun to try. I bet that engine would be like a diesel!!!!

 

That cam has a alot of overlap (11 @ 50) for the setup with your rpm range in mind. The z06 hands down would make alot more for the rpm range you want; should make a beautiful tq curve with that turbo and the cubes you have.

 

Hey Thunder, the cam you have isn't much of a turbo cam IMO. The LSA is too narrow, and the split is backwards. I used to run a very similar cam to what you have now, and it was waaay rougher and made less power than simply reversing the split and widening the LSA.

The 236/230 115 - 116.5 lsa range is pretty much a "stockish" cam for the 408. Keep in mind the cubes will eat a lot of the duration. I have no noticeable lope.

BTW, I completely agree that the turbo will make most of the power -- the cam just needs to be set up to make the turbo's job easier if it can be -- that means wider lsa, intake biased. A good turbo rule of thumb for the lsa is:

intake dur + exh dur / 4

If you're gonna go to all the trouble of changing the cam, I'd go with a reverse split, wide lsa in the 230s or low 240s.

 

Good advice guys - I have some thinking to do about this. I've had a few people tell me that this is a good cam for the turbo, and a few tell me it's not.

Here's what I was thinking about "stock" sized cams.

5.3: 191/190-466/457-114
6.0: 196/207-479/467-116 (approx 40 cubes increase (12% increase), 2.6% intake duration increase, 8.9% exh duration increase, 2.8 and 2.2% lift increase respectively from the 5.3 cam)
For the 408, add about another 44 cubic inches, which is another 12% increase in displacement. Then look at the 02+ Z06 cam (204/218-551/555-117.), and you have a 4.1 and 5.3% increase in intake and exh durations, 15 and 18.8% increase in lift. Going off the increases from the 5.3 to 6.0 cam, the Z06 cam seems like it would be in line with the increase from the 6.0 to the 6.7.

I may go ahead and try a few different cam setups and see what nets me the best overall gain. I don't care if I have to shift well below 6000 RPM as long as I've got the torque I need to get this pig moving. I'd be interested to see how my current cam compares to a Z06 cam and the reverse split 230-240ish cam that Turboberserker is talking about. I do agree though that the cam I have now should probably be changed. Turbo cams aren't supposed to lope, right?