Looking at the "W packages" additions to the powertrains, I am going to generalize and say that the idea was mostly a high rpm performance cam shaft and a numerically high, low geared rear differential, with the carb adjustments, looser pistons, and transmission tweaks to do it, along with some different heads on some years. Also looking at the care and feeding of such a beast, it seems that one of the main issues is compression ratio versus the lower quality gasoline available today. A number of questions occurred to me, with the advances of cam design.

1. Can a modern grind cam give performance output to beat the 70 MT 328/328 cam, yet allow better manners for power brakes and air conditioning? (I do understand the extra weight and belt drag of the AC would lower the performance, this is a hypothetical).
2. Can a modern grind cam give performance with manners for brakes and AC that would offset lowering the CR from a 10.5 hi comp original @1970 engine to an 8.5 CR modern gas friendlier build?
3. Knowing that the W cars were set up to drag race and the high overlap cams only really work at high rpm and numerically high gears, can modern cams achieve more lower rpm performance without sacrificing too much upper rpm performance? (I am aware this is usually a choice between the two but wondered if modern tech allowed having and eating cake too.)

In one sentence, I am wondering how much modern cam design has allowed for traditional high performance, but removed some necessity for high CR and horrible idle and vacuum signal.

 

camshaft design has come a long way in 50 years. The better the cylinder heads flow, the less cam timing you need to make the same power. There is power in reducing friction and lighter parts as well.

 

I have a 70 W30 4SP. I put in a Engle 22-25-10 cam, so I could put on power brakes. I'm very happy with it.

 

If Olds were making 2021 W30's, engineers would be using that 328 cam for a door stop. Mark's new Edelbrock heads and a hydraulic roller would give a 350/455 LUDICROUS SPEED with overdrive, a/c, pb, and cup holders. You may have even seen an all electric awd 2021 W30 442, 0-60mph in 3 sec.

 

I can’t think of a good reason to use a original cam grind over a modern grind. Why would anyone what to not take advantage of 50 years of research and innovation?

 

I ran the second.biggest lunati voodoo.hyd. cam which was 227 , 234 I wanna say. Can ran low 12's had great street manners and enough vacuum for power brakes. This was with a 350 , 10 to 1 comp. I regret selling that engine. Drive it anywhere

 

Why would you limit yourself to 8.5 compression. ?

 

Agreed. Unless your determinate to run 87 octane, you can easily bump the compression to 9.5-10-1 and run premium.

I have done the math several times, I’m at 10.9-1 and have no problem with pump gas. Granted, the aluminum heads help. I have run the car at the track on race gas, and pump gas, the timeslips are the same. That tells me the engine isn’t octane limited.


Dont handicap yourself with low compression and 50 year old cam grinds. Talk to Mark (cutlassefi) about your engine.


Having said all this, don’t cheap out on the pistons. Like everything else, there is much better pistons than the off the shelf heavy Speed-Pro pistons advertised. The Speed Pro pistons are HEAVY. Anything you can do to help keep the weight down will help reliability. Find a machinist familiar with Olds engine building practices. The bearing clearance needs to be loose. If your machinist clearances the engine like a sbc, the engine will clearance itself. You will find the bearing/crank material in the oil filter!!

 

And their wide rings subtract a lot of friction HP from your net output compared with modern pistons that take narrow ring packs.

 

The speed pros work. Are they ideal . Not by modern standards but there are so many cheap sets floating around that for 150 bucks ( my current set cost lightly used) I'm gonna use them. My last 350 made about 370 HP nothing major lunati voodoo cam , speed pro Pistons spun well past 6500 rpm

 

Hopefully Cutlassefi interjects, the question has not been answered with any serious technical expertise..like how does lsa, overlap, and lift work into the modern equation versus the older 328 technology? following, as I have wondered the same thing as the OP. Yea, old thread but still interested.

 

The modern way of dealing with these things seems to be an increase in CR back towards the “old” levels for efficiency, allowed by modern materials, reduced weight, precise fuel distribution, variable valve lift and timing, all overseen by advanced electronics. We dinosaurs can utilize a few of these in our antiques.

 

So if I understand you correctly it basically boils down to better internal components like piston, rod weight, etc. electronic ignition etc..I researched several old cams versus new grinds for comparison
w30 328- 244/244 @50, lift 475, 110 lsa
erson hilift- 228/228 @50 ,lift 504/504 on a 110 lsa
old crane hit-282-2-nc- 226/234@50, 491/518 lift on a 110 lsa

It appears to me the novice that the old crane and the erson went to higher lift less duration, difference is dual pattern or not. Which one will do anything different than the other? One is 35 year old technology on the crane and the erson basically todays technology. So why is one better than the other?

 

For what it's worth. My lunati cam is an old ultradyne design. Solid flat tappet cam it actually produces 8 inches of vacuum. It's an old grind ( maybe early 90's ) . I don't think solid cams currently are getting any better than that unless roller. Also the lunati voodoo cams which for hydraulic flat tappet are about as it gets where also design by Harold Berkshire. I had a really basic 9.75 to 1 355 making about 375 horses with nothing more than just big valves . No port work nothing fancy I ran the 2nd biggest flat tappet hyd cam you can get and still ran power brakes. The typical backyard build. That's my 2 cents. I can't back it up with Dyno sheets but I got a ton of time slips and combo sheets for the car and engine.

 

The biggest change over time has been the lobe shape itself. You can have two cams with the same rated duration (say 230@0.050) with completely different lobe characteristics. Compare a hydraulic flat tappet to a hydraulic roller, using the Comp cams master lobe profile catalog... an Xtreme Energy hydraulic flat tappet 230*@.050" lift will have 140-143* of duration at 0.200" lift, while an Xtreme Energy hydraulic roller 230*@0.050" lift will have 151* of duration at 0.200" lift (and ends up with more lobe lift). The area under the lift curve is totally different. Even newer flat tappets are much more aggressive (have more lobe intensity) than factory cams and can offer more lift with equivalent @0.050 duration numbers.

There are a lot of ways to approach this conversation, but yes... you can do a lot more with a modern grind over a factory cam. I don't know that we'll ever understand why or how Olds settled on the design of the 328 cam, but 244/244@0.050 on a 110 LSA has a ton of overlap and is pretty large overall. It was designed to work with a certain configuration and headers they had in mind back in 1969.

This kind of changes the topic, but if you really want to make power while maintaining driveability, even at a reduced compression ratio, focus on airflow... get the heads ported with competition valve job or use aluminum heads. Even with a mild cam, you'll be amazed at the power gains.

 

Yup lobe shape probably particularly asymmetrical lobes offer great advantages particularly on the closing end to maintain better cylinder pressure. This would be clearly for the guy who is focused more on some particular driving characteristics.

 

I ran the comp 280h which is a pretty basic old grind. 490 lift 230 duration on a 110. Set up was good for low 13's with my very inexperienced self. Probably could have done high 12's but vacuum was horrible and it didn't like a tight converter at all took alot of tuning to get that happy with the cobled up crap. But I still love that cam. It probably has the best sounding idle for such a small cam.

Didn't someone do a Mopar lobe cam for an olds ????? I vaugley remember this being the topic on the old ROP

 

Pretty sure it was Milan using Schubeck lifters.

 

Yes. I think it was a no nothing 455 and it made impressive numbers.

 

I used a Mopar design .904" lobe for my engine masters engine. i also checked into have a specific lobe ground for the .921" olds lifter, but it was $1200.00 per lobe..so a $2400.00 experiment that I passed on

 

One quick and easy upgrade would be a Comp Cams extreme energy.

 

Yea, i used a xe268h in my 66 pontiac 421, ran well. Basically I am just trying to learn why some thing and have basically the same LSA, relatively close duration and be considered an old-school grind one a newer school cam on paper looks basically the same. So I’m on here of said it’s lobe shape, I just want to learn while Lobe shape or ramp would make that much difference.

 

Well back in the 60-70s all we had was the 328 loper it was great going thru a store parking lot as all the alarms went off as I drove down the isles. I run a Isky mega cam 292 works great for what I drove then and now. It ran 12.04 at 115MPH 4 years ago and now in my 65 Cutlass. But i'm old school (74) all the way and I don't race anymore.