Ok. There have been posts on here about XE this and XE that. Now does anyone have any dyno or track proof of how much more power exactly you get out of these cams. Lets say you had identical motors. with identical .050 duration, lift, and l/s oh lets say a 250 somthing @ .050 .575 lift, on a 108 or what evers closest to that in the XE line. Lets call this a wild motor. 11:1 compression 400. But one cam was an XE and one was a crane or somthing comparable. how much power are we looking at here? 5hp? 10? and maybe 10 lb ft of torque? maybe 15? I couldnt believe it would be anything incredibly significant. Just curious to see if anyone has any back to back tests or anything.

Comp Cams has some dyno pulls posted on their web-site of the various XE hydraulic cams in apparently the same engine.
Pay very close attention to the lower 4 dyno pulls. They are very interesting ...

UDHarold

http://www.compcams.com/Technical/DynoSheets/

These?

Yes.....

Compare the XE250, the XE256, The XE262, and the XE268 veeeery closely.
Not much point in getting anything more than the XE250, is it?
In 355 Goodwrench engines, my UD 272H12 would be about 55 BHP under my UD 288/296H8. 217@.050/.454 vrs 231/239@.050, .485/.507.

UDHarold

Hi Harold,,
did you get the fax of the "other cam" my wife sent you ok?

Harold,did you say that you designed the XE cams for Comp??? Why so many designs with so little difference?? :confused:

In 355 Goodwrench engines, my UD 272H12 would be about 55 BHP under my UD 288/296H8. 217@.050/.454 vrs 231/239@.050, .485/.507.Wouldn't low end torque and DCR fall through the floor using a 288/296 cam in a "goodwrench" 8:1 motor?

Originally posted by Rapid Robert:
Harold,did you say that you designed the XE cams for Comp??? Why so many designs with so little difference?? :confused: =
Bob,
Not to speak for Harold but I don't believe you can blame the XE line on him,,, :D

OK, this is sure to start controversy, but curiousity has gotten the best of me. Based on Mike's comment above, and numerous comments in many posts by Harold, it seems you guys have a low opinion of the Comp XE line. This baffles me a little. Lots of people use them, and they seem to work well for mild street engines. My XE262 in a low-buck 355 runs a 3900 pound car (I scaled it at the track) to mid-13's at 98-99 mph, with a stock converter, 3.42 gears, and unleaded pump gas, and it idles as smooth as a stocker. It builds enough torque to do all this without exceeding 5500rpms. I don't even shift, I leave the car in drive. Are you saying there are cams out there that work better? I'm sure that there are cams from other manufacturers that can match these results, but to say the XE line is junk implies there are cams out there that would do much better. Sure, I could put a bigger cam, bigger stall, steeper gears, and more compression and go faster, but apples-to-apples, i.e. plug a different cam into my combo with no other changes, if someone can identify a grind that would exceed my current results I would love to try it.

Junk, who said junk? The critisism has been noise, failures, and "being hard on the valve train". And IMHO the failures are a statistical deal, #of cams sold.

Harold, I see that. The 250 beats all the small ones.???? Maybe it was a DCR issue?

Imho, the HE line up and past the Magnum line are more street duty cams b/c they historically don't beat the valvetrain up all that bad when compared to the newr, high zoot lobes that are bieng sold nowadays!!

But they aren't "balls-out", get all you can get out of your motor for the duration cams....

pdq67

PS., I still say that if you check the back of CC's cam cat., it says that lobes past the HE and magnum line are more race then street duty lobes so this may be why they are noisy and have problems moreso then the two afore mentioned lower powered lobed cams... Again, jmho...

Harold and Gene,

I was thinking about using an XE cam, and duplicating the Goodwrench 350 build from Chevy High Performance listed here:(stopping with the vortec heads)

http://www.73-87.com/chp/gm350.htm

I would be putting it in a 68 wagon, with a 2500 stall 2004r, and 3:55 gears.

Any thoughts or cam suggestions would be appreciated.

Rob

RapidRobert,

I can't be blamed for the XE line, Billy Godbold, their current designer, did those.
I designed, originated, etc, etc, etc, their High Energy line, such as the 268 High Energy cam, with 218 at .050 and .454" valve lift.
As I was leaving Comp Cams, I had a 413-cid SBC with a 278HE cam in it. THAT was a radical little dude! About 231 at .050, .454 valve lift again, and 108 LSA. It made my Don Hardy Vega fly........
I got rid of it after finding out that Scooter forget to drill the steam holes in the heads, and for other reasons, too. Mainly for the other reasons......
Even the Don Hardy-radiator couldn't keep it cooled down......

UDHarold

I find it interesting that comp will actually show the charts like that. I think they are probably accurate. They show almost 30hp increase from the XE268 to the XE274, that is pretty much the results I saw when I made that exact change. I went from 104 mph to 107 mph when I had the 383 in a 70 Chevelle.

It also looks like the XE294 makes the XE284 worthless with more power at similar rpms.

As far as reliability goes, I have almost 40K miles on the XE274 w/1.6 rockers and just hit my best ET with it last month. IMO it is a great cam if you can live with the noise. Is there a similar cam that will ET better? Maybe, but this one's nothing to sneeze at.

Lonnie

Harold,

What are the hy- cam equivalents of your old three little SB solid cams below??

1. 256/225, .454" lift

2. 264/232, .470" lift

3. 272/238, .485" lift

I ask b/c my frame of reference when I get away from the old -097 Duntov and the 30-30 cams isn't very good when going from solid to hy-...

And I am still looking for a little bitty solid cam for my 283 but figured your little ones were still too big to produce really good low to mid rpm grunt..

But both the 256 and 264 cams are looking better to me...

pdq67

pdq67,

Well,roughly, the 256F is close to the 272H, the 264F is close to the 280H, and the 272F is close to the 288H, or 284H.
They are never exactly the same, as the solids' short seat timings produce more torque than the hydraulics are capable of. On the top end, the solids' higher port velocities(from their short seat timings) give better filling, even with their decreased net lift.
Once the hydraulics are adjusted correctly, they'll go 5 to 8 years without problems.....

UDHarold

Mike,

You are definitely reading me wrong. I don't have a particularly bad opinion of Comp's XE line, but, as a former Vice-President of Comp Cams, my attitude towards the company is different than most people's.
OTOH, if they want to buy my old company's corpse, good, more power to them. It's worth a lot, I hope they pay a lot for it........

UDHarold

Harold,

I guess what I am really after is a solid version of the good old CC 268HE you made!!!!!

And I mean as close as possible to it except for the solid's natural more power production capability!!

I am really afraid that my little 283 just doesn't need anymore cam then that, especially with my 3.31 gears in the back.. B/c I bet it will end up in my car at some point in time if I don't get too old ta wrench????

pdq67

pdq67,

Get a 274H, 274 at .006, 226 at .050, 137 at .200, and .468" valve lift. This is a hydraulic cam.
Run solid lifters with about .006" valve lash. I have done this for years with this family(In SCCA road racing, they have a class allowed solids, but only .500" gross valve lift. This family gives .499" lift in 5.0L Fords, and have dominated the class for a number of years, using 241 or 250 at .050 cams.)
The 274H comes close to the 268HE. Another one is the 280H, 223 at .050, .463 valve lift. Same .006" valve lash. The 280H is the 288H's little brother.
And so now it's bed for me. I'll answer tomorrow....

UDHarold

Originally posted by UDHarold:
Yes.....

Compare the XE250, the XE256, The XE262, and the XE268 veeeery closely.
Not much point in getting anything more than the XE250, is it?
In 355 Goodwrench engines, my UD 272H12 would be about 55 BHP under my UD 288/296H8. 217@.050/.454 vrs 231/239@.050, .485/.507.

UDHarold Hey Harold great talking to you yesterday --

One thing that I noticed is that the smaller 4 dyno tests (XE250-XE268) all used a Performer intake and Dart SR heads. Then for the XE274 and larger cams they jumped all the way to a Vic Jr and Sportsman II heads.

It seems to me that any engine will only make as much power as its weakest part . . . In this case I believe that the SR heads and to a lesser extent the Performer intake were holding back the XE262 and XE 268. With 210 cfm intake flow at .400 lift I think the SR heads are limited to right about the 420 HP they saw on the dyno. They would have been better served to test these cams with the Sportsman II heads and a Performer RPM intake. I gaurantee they would have seen different results . . .

Its ALL about the combo !!!!! A good cam will really wake up an engine, but ANY cam will fall on its face if the rest of the parts aren't up to snuff. In Comps case I think that the SR heads were a poor choice -- they should have used heads in all tests that would clearly outflow the cam so the engine would be "cam limited" rather than head or intake limited.

Now I'd like to see a Dyno test with a couple different grinds with the same .050 duration . . . maybe compare the Comp XS290 with Harolds 288/296 solid FT --- that would be more telling IMO ;)

Hmmmm.... that 256F sounds like a sweet cam for a street 327 w/ 9.3:1 CR, and stock-ish heads. I wonder how this will work in my Chevy II?

Actually they show the S/R's and performer with the XE274 also. The S/R's do leave a lot to be desired. I had a set on a 350, it ran a lot better with some 040 castings, similar to double humps.

lonnie: i am running the solid xe274 and couldn't agree with you more, the cam has pulled my car to an easy 12.60 @ 107.8 mph with some tuning left, kicker is that is at 7000 feet DA to give you an idea what kind of air we were dealing with that day on the mountain.

Hey,now i´m worried..so my XE 11-770-8 was a bad choice for my CHBB 408"(under rebuilding),10.1 702heads,2.19/1.88,performer intake,750cfm,2"headers,3.90gear, in my 68 Nova???

Nova,


Now you are thinking like I am with respect to a good street solid cam for a mild motor that needs some grunt.

Harold,

Are you saying buy a 274 hy- cam and run a set of solids on it lashed down real tight at .006"???

I thought I would need something more like a 258 hy- cam to do this to so I could make more midrange and lower grunt outta my little 283 motor???

Or will lashing at .006" turn the 274 hy- cam into a 260 or so solid??

pdq67

pdq...

Well, I have a mostly stock '69 235 hp 327 under the hood of my '65 Nova. I also have a set of 64cc heads w/ 2.02/1.60 valve, and a performer RPM laying around. I'm thinking the 256f, with these heads and intake would make it into a little screamer in the 3000-5500 range. smile.gif

I would need to run it through my copy of D2K and look at some other cams and watch the trends!!

But it sounds like a winner to me offhand..

pdq67