96-99 454 Vortec owners?

[bankspowered98]

Skills, the Banks Powerpack really woke my truck up. That was the first thing I did to the truck after I purchased it. The complete exhaust system I beleive was around 1700.00 give or take a bit. I know there are other companies out there that have the same setup but I wanted to go with a company that stood out in the trucking world. Since I did that, I have recammed it, roller rockers, big TB, Full MSD ignition, bored the engine .030 over, K&N cold air, and added a bit of compression. I am getting ready to get ahold of jessie to have him create a computer for my truck. The truck surprisly runs very well even on stock tune. All the work was done without tripping he "check engine" light. I lucked out. I will say though, I am about done. The last step to the build is a whipple. So if anyone has one for a 454 let me know, ill take it off your hands.

Right now the truck put down 667 on torque to the rear wheels and I am wanting 750 to 800 out of the gasser. After that I will be done for a bit.

Ps..The truck stills gets around 12-14 on the highway unloaded and towing 6000lbs gets 15-16 with cruise set on 68.

[N0DIH]

What cam specs are you running?

I would love to cam up the 454 I have, it needs more.....It is soooo out of breathe by 4500 rpm...

[dietzster]

I second that, please let me know the cam specs, I am researching cams to put in my 98 big block. It would be nice to know of a cam with proven results.
Thanks

[bankspowered98]

I will hunt down the cam card this evening. It was not alot more than stock but between that and the roller rockers it made one hell of a difference. The only other issue I ran into was the clearence between the rocker arms and the valve covers. Since you can not run tall valve covers due to the tight fit on the passenger side, I doubled up the gaskets on that side and had no issues. So far, haha. I will hunt that down though this evening and then post it. One question, how do you post pics in the thread? I will post some pics of the truck as well. It has changed alot since my signature picture.

[98GreenMachine]

You will have to upload pics to photobucket.com or a similar image hosting site. Then you can post the image link that they provide.

You have to register on their site, but its free and only takes a second.

I'm curious to see how your truck/engine look

[dietzster]

What brand of rockers did you use? Did you have to go with stainless ones due to lack of space under valve cover? It seems we have the same taste in engine mods, everything I'm working on doing you've done already!

[bankspowered98]

I went with the comp cams magnum ones. They seemed to have a little bit shorter stance but still provide the same performance upgrade. These are some exterior pics. They were take with my iphone so they arent very good. I will take some engine pics later and upload them.

[N0DIH]

Well the stock cam is around 206/210 IIRC. Pretty small for a 454... I had a 228/228 @ 0.050 and 0.480 lift in my 455 Trans AM and it idled at 750 rpm with no issues.

I am pondering the ZZ502 cam, that is what the teamchevelle.com guys seem to really like in the L29.

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117943

http://www.sallee-chevrolet.com/Disc...html?967827379

http://forums.hotrod.com/70/6493050/...502/index.html

As BossHoss on the above link put it:
==============================================
I asked this same question on another board and here is the reply I got, Does this guy know what he is talking about???

First problem that I see is the hydraulic rollers and a 2,500 RPM converter. That is going to limit your cam choices to about 230° duration or comprable to what the factory chose. The specs on the factory ZZ 502 cam are 224° int., 234° exh. @0.050 lift; 0.527" int., 0.544" exh. on a 110° LSA.

You are limited to a 5,800 RPM red line because of the weight of the tappets and the springs used in the heads. You can not run stiffer springs because it will collapse the lifters, but you can gain 300 additional RPM with a Rev Kit to hit your desired RPM range. This however will still limit your maximum lift to the valves at 0.555", because the dog bone retainer will fall off the cam at a higher lift than that. (I know it sounds counter intuitive because more lift means it should stick even better onto the retainer. But to get more valve lift they have to make the base circle smaller on the cam so that the lobes will still move past the bearings on installation. This means at a higher lift, the tappet falls lower down onto the base circle and will drop out of the retainer and turn sideways.)

I would recommend a solid roller cam and a looser converter if you are racing this thing coupled with rectangular port RHS or AFR CNC’d heads. But from your moniker I see you have this engine installed in a motorcycle and I think the factory 500 horse available to you through out your chosen RPM band in a motorcycle is scary enough.

I suspect you are just looking for a more radical sounding cam. If so you will have to have a custom cam ground similar to the "Thumper or VooDoo" cams that are currently the rage. It has a tighter LSA (about 107°) and adds about 8-10 degrees more to the exhaust duration to sound like a top fuel car.
================================

I look at it as I am looking for best power under the curve, from idle to 5000 rpm, maybe 5500. I don't need to spin it more. I don't care about exhaust sound, I want it to idle smooth. This is the family truckster and occaisional trailer hauler.

[bankspowered98]

Mine is the .510/.540 cam. I didnt want to put something too big in and have to worry about clearence issues. The camshaft came from gm and was ordered through www.gmpartsdirect.com. I installed new springs as well; per gm techs suggestions. I dont really want to mess with a stall converter or anything of such in a truck. For some reason I just get the idea that it will just build up a hell of alot of heat especially pulling something.

[heavy454]

Bankspowered, has your gas mileage been affected much by the cam swap?

[N0DIH]

I just reread this. You get better towing than not?

I gotta admit, for some of my towing drive with the heavily loaded 28 foot race car trailer I got between 9 and 10. I was pretty surprised.... I get that without towing, but the truck has other fueling issues too... (rich runner)

Originally Posted by bankspowered98

...

Right now the truck put down 667 on torque to the rear wheels and I am wanting 750 to 800 out of the gasser. After that I will be done for a bit.

Ps..The truck stills gets around 12-14 on the highway unloaded and towing 6000lbs gets 15-16 with cruise set on 68.

[bankspowered98]

Yea, I am better towing than not. I live here in Kansas City, MO and I can tow my 21 ski boat down to the lake of the ozarks and back on a full tank. However last weekend I went to springfield and back on a full tank, which is about 15.83 mpg. It seems like the more the camshaft and everything gets broke in the better the engine reacts.

Heavy454, my mileage actually stayed pretty much the same. It actually increased when I took the tires there in the pictures off and put my 20's back on to go out of town. They are 305/50-20 terra grapplers and it gets better mileage with those than it ever has.

[dietzster]

NODIH
I dunno, I could see that ZZ502 cam be the only way to go in a car, but in a heavy pulling truck I'd be leary. Also do you know the lsa on that cam? p/n 12366543, would it run in a computer controlled engine? I've been leaning towards the HT502 cam p/n 12552296, but am unsure if it would run in a computer controlled vehicle also. Whats your opinion?

[heavy454]

Thats funny, i have 305/50/20s on mine too. how much work was it to do the cam and rocker swap? I was thinking about doing a small cam next summer but i didnt want it to hurt gas mileage and i dont want to have to remove my engine completely. by the way, i saw the torque numbers, how much horsepower did it put down?

[N0DIH]

A while back I checked the HT502 cam is the same as the L29 cam.

You might need a PCM tune, but I don't think it should be too bad. Honestly, the ballpark I would WANT to be in is the 214/222 range on a 112. No higher than 114 degrees.

You will need to bump up base timing maps most everywhere to compensate for the slower burn of the lower cyl pressure. The computers are pretty forgiving (especially with MAF's) as long as you tune for it. You shouldn;t have any problems passing SMOG if you need to. But watch overlap, that can murder emissions too, too small lets a lot pass out the tail pipe...

Originally Posted by dietzster

NODIH
I dunno, I could see that ZZ502 cam be the only way to go in a car, but in a heavy pulling truck I'd be leary. Also do you know the lsa on that cam? p/n 12366543, would it run in a computer controlled engine? I've been leaning towards the HT502 cam p/n 12552296, but am unsure if it would run in a computer controlled vehicle also. Whats your opinion?

[bankspowered98]

It put down 430 on hp at 3200. The camshaft swap and everything took me 2 days. I worked on it all day long so it wasnt too bad.

[dietzster]

Thanks for your opinion, I guess the HT502 cam is pretty close to stock. The other cam I was looking at was crane cams #168725
it is the one I'll go with then, it is 214/220 and 553/564 lift and 112 LSA, should be a decent step up from stock. I've also got a W4M tune on the way, I'll post with results when installed
thanks

[skills4lou]

Hey Bankspowered98,
What gears do you have? My truck has 4.10s. I'm also looking forward to pics of the engine (hint,hint). Can't see spending money on the cam swap yet (suffering from lackomula), but the exhaust is starting to rust pretty bad. It's got factory dual, so I'll just be going cat back. Any guess what a Banks system would run for just that?

[bankspowered98]

Skills, here is the website for the "Stinger System" which I beleive is what you are looking for. I removed my cats and am running o2 simulators. That seemed to help a tad. My current gears are 3:73 with a stock posi unit.

http://bankspower.com/System.cfm?appid=AC05&sysid=SC09
PowerPack® system
Best Gains
+70 horsepower
+85 lb-ft torque
10% better fuel economy

Stinger system
Best Gains
+33 horsepower
+43 lb-ft torque
5% better fuel economy

[skills4lou]

Thanks for the link. I can't find the powerpack system for our trucks, can you post a link for me?
I'm guessing just upgrading my ignition will be a big help for me. Sometime this week I'll be tweaking on that.