Does anyone have any "real world" experience with BOTH cams? Both are in the range of what I am looking for, and I am curious about which one makes more power, since the specs are virtually identical (taking into account the .004 vs. .006 advertised duration, adv duration is likely the same, +/- 2 deg).

Thanks!

I sure hope Harold pop's in here and give's us his no-B/S answer on this b/c I never looked at both cams like this but rather that they were interchangable is all!!

And also wish Mr. Crane himself would pop in here too.....

pdq67

...someone's gotta have a real world answer to this one. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to use the 272 I've already bought for my bbc or just bite the bullet and get the 276/286 cam from Harold (Lunati). So it's TTT for this one. Thanks.

i ran the 272 crane cam for some time in my camaro bbc 396 with stock open chambered heads and stock low rise intake and hei with 7.7 to 1 compression ratio stock tranny and convertor with 2.56 gears out back and it ran 14.40's at 99 mph in first and second gear on a set of 225 70 15 tires with a best of 2.19 60 ft time spinning of course alittle not bad tho.

the engine reved nice to 5500 rpms and that was where it e.t. and mph best at with a 1-2 shift. you knew there was cam in the 396 but that was it low comp ratio,stock everything with just open headers i would say its not bad. for a street cam

i could roast that rear tire for over a block long without power braking.

i figure i should add this as well.....with that same engine (396) it went thru some "performance stages" that wasnt to great because of the compression ratio.

i added the crane cam 284 grind,eddy performer intake,2 piece alum holley 4011 or 4010 cant remember which one for sure but it was the 750 vacuum secondary carb dual feed design (what a P.O.S. carb) threw in 4.56 gears posi and 2500 stall only to run 14.99 thru the 1/4 at something like 92 mph or so.

this is when i found out i had 7.7 to 1 comp. because i tore the heads off to see really what my compression was. since i was told by the machinist that i had 10 to 1 when the motor was built the first time. but i really only had 7.7 to 1 to start with.

no wonder i was slowing down when i was adding bigger cam and better intakes and what not...

anyway my car picked up when i put on a set of really well used closed chambered heads with stock sunken valves that was the 2.06/1.72 size. this gave me 8.8 to 1 comp now. this dropped it down to the 13.97 range just with the bump in compression and a little more tunning of the timming and carb.mph was right back in the 99 mph range

after porting the same closed chamberd heads it droped it down to the 13.60 range at 104 mph.

I think more than likely it would be very difficult to see any difference without a dyno. And you are probably right, the advertised numbers are measured at different tappet lifts, so even all the advertised numbers between both cams are probably real close, even closer than they read now on the cam card. The only cam I can speak of is the energizer crane cam. Ive always found it to be a good cam for a stock to midly modified motor. Its a surprisingly torqeuy little bugger, and it revs nice to 5500rpm and it has a nice muscle car sound. Consider a full weight 70 chevelle with 8.8:1 compression in a 350, 2.73 gears and 28 inch tall tires with a stock tranny and converter. Definitely not a recipe for good 60 foot times, but surprisingly enough that cam in this poor, stock setup had enough steam to burn both of the big 28 tall, 10 inch wide meats, and as you can see, there wasnt any help from the rest of the motor or drivetrain combo. It took a little persuation to get em going, in the form of a brakestand, but once they started spinning, they would spin til you ran out of gas or the tires exploded with the airplane gears. I will say though, it kicked real good from about a 3500rpm kickdown and would pull strong to 5500 too. Definitely a nice broad powerband for a regularly driven street car. Id bet it coulda actually broke into the 13's with a 3.55 gear, 2000rpm converter, headers and an aluminum intake and a good carb. It was about a 15.40 car running through exhaust manifolds with a Q jet and a crappy intake manifold with the drivetrain just as I mentioned it, so there was lotsa room for improvement. oh, and points ignition. Definitely low 14's with all those changes, and like I said, it coulda been just into the 13's. Basically, I would base your decision on who you usually have the best luck with cause I doubt there is enough of a difference to talk about. The comp might have a tad of a high rpm advantage due to the fact that its got 2 more degrees duration at .050(218 vs 216) so it might have a little bit more of an aggressive lobe profile to help out top end breathing, but still, not a giant difference. I could be wrong though, we will have to see if anyone does have experience with both.

Good stuff, Greg!

Off Topic: BTW.. where, in Pittsburgh, are you located? I grew up in the west end near McKees Rocks... my parents still live there.

Im not actually in Pittsburgh, Im in beaver county, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, but pittsburgh is a better reference so thats why I put that for a location. Small world huh.

I had the Cam Dynamics 272 Energizer (now belongs to Crane) in a .030 over 350 with maybe 8.5:1 CR in a heavy '73 Caprice 2dr. It had a TH350 and a 2400rpm stall converter. It had a near stock idle. Probably due to the weight, it would not spin the tires with the, I'm guessing, 2.73 gears and snow tires :D , but it pulled real hard. I often wish I had that one to do over because it would have gotten more compression, better gears and I would have taken it to the strip to see just how quick it was. In a lighter car this has to be a pretty respectable combo.

Rod

TTT, I see the resident Cam Wizard was around today, may he'll see this now.

personally, if I were building a new engine I would rather have a Crane than CC, too many posts on here about QC issues with CC cams.

Tom