Need Cam Advice
 

Freshened up 330hp 454's. Stainless Marine Exhaust. Airgap intakes and Edelbrock 750cfm carbs sitting the box waiting to be installed. Not looking to go roller right now. 30' Heavy A** Scarab. Topping out around 60mph. What's about the best cam I can run? What other info did I leave out that's needed to help answer my question?

Thanks
Bill

mrfixxall
 

the guy you want to talk to is Bob Madara of Marine Kinetics in New York. 585-654-8583..
He will hook you up with the rite cam selection,to you he may be confusing but bare with him,he knows his chit and will give you the best bang for your buck,when he grinds his cams he uses the best cam blanks money can buy...no junk ..

x2 for Bob Maderia

Chris

x3 for Bob, I would recomend a roller over flat tappet. Spend the money you will not regret it.

I would advice strongly against a flat tappet.
The lifters and flat tappet camshafts these days are not what
they used to be and most modern oils do not have the neccesary additives to run a flat tappet.
I didnt listen and I learned the hard way, dont follow my mistake..

mrfixxall
 

and if you do deside to go flat tappet make sure you use crower cam saver lifters..

Thanks for all the answers,
To convert to a roller setup I pretty much need to replace my heads right? Or re-stud them etc.....

mrfixxall
 

all you need is the retrofit lifters with the tiebar that keep the lifters from spinning,camshaft,adjustable rocker arms and probably pushrods..If your heads have screw in studs then your set,if their non adjustable then all you need to do is get a set of rocker arm studs from arp(only) ....

You will need the cam, lifters, springs, retainers, locks, pushrods, rocker studs, roller rockers. Depending on the version of block you have you may need a timing cover. Camshaft endplay will need to be adjusted. I just went through all of this this spring, do a search for "Roller Cam Upgrade". If you use Bob for your cam he will help you on all the matching components.

Your heads will be the restrictive portion to making power. The exhaust up grade will help. I would get something similar to the Merc 420 flat tappet cam if you don't want to spring the extra $1200+ for the Hydraulic roller setup. Its kinda do you want to go Hyd roller later or now. You might be able to get away with your existing springs that are in your heads now, but you would need someone to set them up for the 420 cam. But after going through all this you still might not notice any power difference. What heads do you have on your boat now?? casting #'s? that would help out.
If they are the restrictive peanut port, I wouldn't do it until you got new heads.
Also on a side note, I think, hotter cams usually like a little more compression.

Peanut heads. I was just trying to get a little more HP. I should probably just wait and do this proper. I thought maybe I could get away with cams and intake for a bit. My exhaoust is already installed.

What are your eventual HP goals? The peanut heads should be able to support to 400 HP, but it sounds like when your done you want to be 450-500. Then you would need some new heads or a ton of port work on those peanuts.

If you are going on a budget I have a couple sets of springs for flat tappets in the .550 range. PM me if interested. I used to have a crane cam in the .550 lift 235 duration range that made decent power. I am not sure if Bob does any flat tappet cams but you may want to give him a call. I would wait till you got better heads to do the roller setup.

450-500hp was the idea. My head might have been in the clouds a bit though.

Changing to hyd roller cams costs about 1200.00 per engine by the time you change out the springs and the pushrods. If you don't have roller rockers, you will need them too. It's not worth it to do this to the peanut port heads. A better cam might get you a couple of mph but you're not going to get more without changing heads.