Stock engine basics

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Danpa

I must be mistaken, but I thought most stock cams wouldn't let the motor rev very high, or at least make any power while doing it. Don't they kind of fall on their face above 5 or 6 grand? Am I wrong?

Even before the lifter rule, valve spring rule, and camshaft duration rule were all rescinded, the "cheater" camshafts for Stock were fairly "square" with regards to lobe design. These days the only thing stock about a Stock camshaft is the tappet lift.

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

Even before the lifter rule, valve spring rule, and camshaft duration rule were all rescinded, the "cheater" camshafts for Stock were fairly "square" with regards to lobe design. These days the only thing stock about a Stock camshaft is the tappet lift.

The General Kinetics cam in my '56 Chevy in the early/mid '70s. The lobes were almost square. Killed valve springs in three or four races. It was the 2X4 bl 225 hp Corvette engine, solid lifter deal, valves set at .003"/.003" (stock was .012" - .018"?) hot. Was faster than anything else I tried. Looked flaky but always past Red Anderson's tear downs. Red would check it, look at me and shake his head, but he always passed it.

[Jeff Lee]

Another way of looking at the differences. A factory built performance muscle car from the '60's to 1970, the very best of the best, made 1 HP per cube approximately.
Most of your "bread and butter" muscle engines made around .75 HP per cube.
A modern Stocker version would not even be a serious engine unless it made in excess of 1.25 HP per cube.

And like everybody else has mentioned, it's a package deal. You can't compromise on one area.