I have a 63 ford galaxie 500 fastback, with a 390 PI 4bbl 4spd, and I'm looking to put a rough idle cam in a stock motor, mainly for sound, can anyone tell me what size to get? Thanks for any advice.
It takes a big cam to make a big cube motor , rumpty , rump . The stock 427 Med Riser and 429 SCJ I owed didn’t lope to much . I would look into a “Thumper” cam , and for the life of me I can not remember the brand . I need some more info , as in axle gear ratio . It’s always better to match cam and valve springs also to prevent binding , and other issues. The high lift doesn’t do as much as a long duration for the sound . Just be cautious , your low speed drivability will exit if not careful .
3.00 gears and a lumpy cam in a full size car will be a doggy ride...and most 390s weren't fire breathers to begin with. Another thing to keep in mind is that once you get over 0.500" valve lift on a FE you need to swap over to adjustable rockers. Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Your major cam manufactures have some good tech support and can help ya pick one out http://www.compcams.com/Company/CC/CamRecommendation/CamHelpNew.aspx The rear gear you are running will be one of the issues you will run into
I wouldn't go over a 280 duration cam on a stock engine. That is a 10.1 compression stock engine. So many variables. If all you want in a stock engine is a rumpety rump cam. that is what you probably will have a rumpety rump dog. Lippy
Don't worry.........if you like a snotty idle(I do!) you can put up with the little bit of down side. Look!!!...you got big cubic inch engine......a four speed tranny......Pole-ese Interceptor heads..that's a lot of pluses. Yeah its a little "chubby" but so am I!!!!! The LSA number on the cam's spec sheet is what determine the "grumpy-ness" of a cam. 108* LSA will give you the "lick" you're look'in for. (BTW...Isky grinds almost ALL his cams on an LSA of 108*) I always suggest...call Delta Cams and get them to grind you a custom stick. No need to get a lift of more than .500 . You're not racing it and big lift requires stiffer springs and different rockers etc. 460-470 will be bigger than stock and still not need adj. rockers. Tell Ken(guy on the phone) you want it to "cut-up" at idle but still be streetable. They get requests like that all the time (thats what he told me!) I would suggest an Alum. hi-rise intake and an up grade in carb to go along with the cam swap. Don't forget to "tailor" the ignition timing for full(36*) advance at about 2000RPM. That alone will help the sluggish bottom end AND....Delta grinds their cams "straight-up" so degree your cam in with about 6-8* advance and that will pretty much eliminate any loss of bottom end torque. You're gonna love it!! Welcome to the "snotty-idle club"!! 6sally6
Well there you have it , an easy run down of answers . Man , a 3.00 in a 2 ton car is the first in on order list of changes if it were me . I know your goin to ask , in the good old days I drove many daily miles in an FE powered Fairlane with 3.70 rear gears . I’m thinking that would be my choice in your case also . But there are tons of factors to the answer for you here also . Where are most of the miles going to be driven at , is a good question . Xway ? You better think about 3.50 or 3.25 . FEs in your state run out of juice at about 4500 , they will spin way more , at a shortened life span . Just sit back , think about some questions , jot down some notes and review your notes berfore making the big move . The biggest mistake you can make , very easily is over sized carb for your needs and style of driving . The aftermarket intake will help the the power to rate ratio a ton . That is by far the heaviest intake ever on any V8 production car . Try to locate a taller 2 plane as in Edlebrock Performer RPM , there are many of the same style with different names . Your best friend is a Sidewinder , in the good old days it was a 50 dollar investment . Today a used one is 400.00 , from a friend .
I recommend a cam from Schneider Cams called the "Little Big cam" in their catalog. I ran one in my 64 Galaxie 390, 4 speed. I used a 428 PI intake, a 600 Holley 1850, and otherwise stock internals. It had a great idle rumble and worked all through the RPM range. Call Jerry Cantrell at Schneider and talk to him about it. The number is 619 297-0227. Jerry usually recommends a custom grind, but suggested this shelf grind and I was very pleased with it. I owned the car several years and everybody who rode with me or heard it idle was impressed.
You can get a rough idle very cheep. Use a belly grind cam. Take your stock cam and using you bench grinder grind some materal from the Heel of the cam. You will achieve your rough idle.
Soooooo, Let me get this straight.... You are willing to go through the work of changing a cam just to get a rough idle? (cough - Poser - cough). Why don't you build the motor to take advantage of the gearing / trans / tire combo you have and get as much as possible out of the motor so it performs at it's best under all driving scenarios??? Or is impressing the local cruise night rubes your primary mission in life? You have a great foundation to start with there. 9.6:1 compression, good heads and a decent intake. Lose the log exhaust manifolds, tighten up the ignition timing, keep the carb tuned up, and it will have a nice snarl coming off idle with the stock cam. But honestly, who cares what people think when it is idling, heads turn when you start banging gears at 5500 RPM......
Dual exhaust with Porters or Smithys or something like that. Try that first? No crossover pipe, then try with maybe. A lot easier than u king around with the cam. Should sound great. Then, think about a cam later.
Even if your FE is worn out and burning oil like a mosquito fogger you should be able to boil the hides off your rear tires at will. Back in high school I had a gofer job at a small used car lot. One day I had to move a GTO 30 feet across the lot. Between the rumpity rump camshaft and the uber he man clutch I must have stalled that thing 30 times in 30 feet. Today you can get all sorts of he man sounding cams, some even run like a scalded dog too. One other short story about the 352 in a '64 Galaxie I had back in the 90's. It was a fresh .030" over engine with an Edelbrock #2105 intake and #2106 camshaft. A very mild package backed by a cast iron CruisoMatic and 3.00:1 gears. My favorite thing to do with that car was to let a late model pony car pull up along side on the highway. When the driver would start looking over my old heap I'd punch it into passing gear taking it up to 95mph or so. Then I'd just wait there for the other driver to catch up. Surprised several folks with that cars highway legs. What ever you do study it and make an informed choice. -Dave
First, two things to PLEASE not consider, a Thumpr aka Poser cam, designed to make noise first and power second, and one of the cheapo hei clone distributors- much better choices are available. And one does not "need" adjustable rockers with a mild juice cam- in fact non-adjustables are being used with fairly large hydraulics, with initial adjustment with pushrod length if necessary. My advice is call Oregon Cams, tell them what you have, and that you want a little snotty but good driveability and let them suggest something. If you go a little too big, torque and driveability will suffer. Ken, the owner of Oregon, is an FE guy himself
Be aware that if you go through with this cam swap and you still have an original cast iron intake you will need just a little help getting that 70lbs (or so) of intake manifold off and out of the way. Get the factory shop manual to walk you through the disassembly and reassembly of the rocker shaft / valve train. -Dave
That car will be a dog on takeoff with a cam upgrade at that ratio. Read up on some cams, Comp or Lunati for example have recommendations on the CR and rear end gears that go with a specific grind. I would talk to the guy in Oregon, that is pretty good advice especially with the rocker arms.
If this a PI engine, wouldn't be a solid lifter engine? I worked on one years ago that someone installed a hydraulic cam and wondered why it wouldn't pump up the lifers. Had to remove a oil galley plug to get oil to the lifters.
You may want to read the link. I own the 390 with the CJ heads STOCK rockers...584 lift. You do not need to have adj rockers. Heres the article: http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=2247.0
Rough sounding idle? Okay, screw around with the idle mixture screws on the carb. That's a good start. Cost is zero. Put in a gear drive to make more noise. That's more expensive. Burned out glass packs, hell yes. And like one guy said, unhook a couple of plug wires too. That's cheap. A cam swap? Well, you can do it, but if everything else isn't up to snuff, don't expect miracles.
A rear gear change will do far more for drivability than a cam change . I like rough idle cams but I’ve also made the mistake of putting a way too big cam in a stock motor and everything off idle sucked . If you can , do gears , headers and mufflers then a cam and tune , just my .02
Nice writeup. Of course, as long as the valvetrain geometry is good, the valve job/valve stem heights are dialed in to a knats ass and you use custom push rods to set lifter preload you can very easily use non-adjustable rockers. The trouble is that most folks aren't going to go through the lengths to blueprint their heads (and many shops dont understand FEs anymore anyway) when you can get good geometry and easily dial in correct lifter preload taking into account tolorance stack up of the entire system with stock Ford adjustable rockers. What you did during your experiment was cool but I wouldn't suggest to someone who may not have the knowledge or resources to go through what you did that they can just slap a modern cam into their basically stock 390 without accounting for variability in the rest of the system. The recommendation in the old FOMOCO performance guides was if FE valve lift is over 0.500" then use adjustable rockers. Although it is not the only answer to the geometry/preload issue, for most common folks using off the shelf parts and typical machining practices this is still sound advice. Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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