I am restoring a 71' Cutlass S, got a thread going in restore section if your interested.

My issue is P.O. got the car as colateral on a loan. Original owner rebuilt engine 200 miles ago. I got a good deal on the car.

Guy I got it off gave me the engine rebuild specs and parts invoice, etc... but there is nothing on the cam other than what he told me "3x over stock" which doesnt mean much. I tried my *** off to get him to go back to original owner and beg for more info on cam, but it just didnt happen. So I know nothing on the cam other than a level or so over stock.

Im at the point to put the front end back on and completely back together.
And I got to decide whether to just put it back together, or take cam out to figure out what it is first, and whether to upgrade it or not before its all built back up and still easy to get to.

1) is there any way at all to figure out the cam specs without taking it out? Some kind of occultic secret method? Ive read some stuff out there about puttting a degree wheel on the front of the crank and pull a valve cover, and then use a dial indicator, that you might get an idea of the profile of the camshaft, if you use those tools correctly...which I dont know how.

2) If I do pull it and decide to keep it after decoding it, I can throw it back in with no other concern correct?

Should I pull it, or leave it alone is the basic question. It drives me nuts not knowing what the cam specs are, but not sure enough to pull it.

(Here are some quick vids of the exhaust my son took on his phone after I first got it, before the MAWs completely took over.)
Some of the rebuild:
--Keith Black 030 Pistons - KB132-030
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/UEM-KB132-030/

--Clevite Cam, Main and Rod bearings
--Possibly Clevite or Hastings Rings (according to "616 030" part number)
--Mondello BB intake\ pan Gasket
--Melling HV oil pump
--SA gear Timing set

Rebuild tolerances:
Top 025 Ring gap
sec 025
Piston to bore .002
deck 013
rods 0025 oil cl
mains 003.

Before:


Now:

 

Yes you can check it with a degree wheel and dial indicator. CaptJim on here has a great video on how to do that.
But that's only one of your problems. Don't expect too much hp and tone no matter what cam is in it. The piston they put in there will only get you in the neighborhood of 8.5-8.75:1. That will limit your cam choices to some extent anyway.

And "the 3X over stock" means he doesn't know. Just like he didn't know what piston to use. You'd be surprised, too many "engine builders" can't even calculate compression ratio.

Best of luck to you in your project.

 

Well if the picture is your current state of assembly, it would not be hard nor that expensive to tear the manifold and front off the engine and look. Just time and gaskets.

Looks like a nice car by the way.

 

As Mark stated, you can just remove a valve cover, attach a dial indicator to the pushrod end of the rocker (or even to the valve retainer; the difference will be the effect of rocker ratio to the lift). If the hydraulic lifter bleeds down, you will find out because you will be able to feel the slight resistance by the spring in the lifter to compressing the pushrod into the lifter. Then you either put enough shim between the rocker tip and the valve stem to take up the slack, or you go to a very light valve spring on that cylinder for the test. You may want to drill a new bolt pattern on the degree wheel, like I did, so it can be bolted to the harmonic damper, with a socket and short extension through its center hole to the crank bolt. Make up a wire pointer, find true tdc (a dial indicator through the spark plug hole will work), and plot lift vs. degrees of movement to get complete lobe specs. If you are not worried about the cam being installed straight up or not, you don't even need to find TDC.

 

Thx for the comments and feedback.

EFI - I was hoping you would comment, I know you're the cam guru here. Thx.
If we consider this just a stock rebuild of a possible U coded 72' 455 as someone else has suggested to me, what would be an ideal cam for this engine?
(Meaning to get the most hp \performance out of it. Thx)

I think I will just put her back together, Enjoy her, and slowly over time put together plan on nice rebuild for the future. I'll look at this engine as a nice stock rebuild, and continue all the other upgrades for that future nastier engine\tran rebuild.

OLD- thx. Yes that is the current state.

RUND- Thanks for the good description. I get the picture. Nice write up on this.

 

An Erson hiFlow AH would work well. It's 220/220 on a 108 with .504 lift. It'll work with the stock valvetrain as well.