trying to figure out whay cam
 

i measured the lift and it is .316
motor is still in boat heads are off
thying to figure what cam is in motor

times 1.7 for ratio equals 537 lift

have heads off ready to take to machine shop to have preasure tested and redone the casting numbers of the heads are 353049 any suggestions on work to do to heads

ttt

nobody is going to be able to I.D. the cam by lift specs only, they might get lucky :). since you have heads off, not that much more work to pull cam and check for #'s

'049 heads are one of the most sought after GM oval port heads.

Though I posted the camshaft lift specs on another thread.
It was a page out of the manual

motor is still in boat no room to pull cam i quess i will just have heads presure tested and cleaned up would it be wise to polish combustion chambers,de-shroud valves ?

How many hours are on the motor? Since heads are coming off anyway, I would pull each lifter and check for signs that it has stopped spinning on the lobe (assuming it is flat tappet and not a roller). You will clearly see a mark where the lobe is starting to wear into the bottom of the lifter if it has stopped spinning. Also, if you have a dial indicator, not a bad idea to measure lift on all 16 lobes. There have been a lot of issues with flat tappet lobes failing, and if that is starting to happen on this motor, there is no sense in tossing a bunch of money into the heads only to have the cam fail 20 hours down the road.

On the heads, once again, dependent on engine hours, I would plan on a valve job, check guide clearance and replace any that are loose, new valve seals, new springs and retainers. You will find that you will get into a lot of money in a hurry if you need to install 16 guides and do other work on the heads. Sometimes you are dollars ahead to just sell the 049's to someone on one of the muscle car forums, and put your money towards a set of aftermarket iron heads that already outflow even the best GM head, and as a benefit you will have everything new with the addition of more compression if you buy something with smaller chambers than the 118 - 122 cc chambers that are on the 049's. Just an opinion from someone who has tread down that path already - if I had it to do over, I would have spend my money on a set of Dart's or Edelbrock's instead of dumping it into the 088 castings that I have.