Thread: V8 Camshaft

Terry, I have a stage 2 heatseaker cam which is a midrange cam, I find it goes quite well, but it is a 4.4 with portmatched heads and efi inlet. Still got plenty of grunt but it breaths a bit better on the highway. I only ever get over 3500rpm when towing 2ton+ or climbing a steep soft sandune in the desert.
Tim

Thanks for that Tim,
Heatseeker is another one I can look at. I should have mentioned that it is a 3.5 carby 9.35cr. I will be keeping the carbs and std ex. manifold, but I will clean up the ports a bit.
Cheers,
Terry

G’day Terry,

My Dad and I recently rebuilt the 3.5L V8 (carby, high compression, ports previously matched and polished, LPG) in my ’84 County, and we spent a very long time researching suitable camshafts. The motor had previously been fitted with a stage 2 Heatseeker camshaft which made it terrible to drive. It had no low-down torque so hills were always a big problem, even at highway speeds. This cam may have been okay in a larger V8 or in a lighter car, but it was not suited to the little 3.5L V8 at all. We also tried a different stage 2 camshaft but the result was the same.

Wanting to get some drivability back we searched for a camshaft that would primarily have good low down torque, but still go okay on the highway. We got suggestions for many different camshafts however after much research we chose the pre-pollution camshaft that the early (pre 1975 I think) Range Rovers used as recommended by T.R. Spares and a couple of other places. This camshaft totally transformed the vehicle! Low down torque has been massively improved, and it actually performs even better than the previous camshafts on the highway. The County now accelerates up the same hills where before it would slow down even after a run up. The power delivery and idling is also smooth, and we have now got increased vacuum.

This camshaft gets our vote!

Edward J

Gday Edward,
Thanks for the reply (sorry I have been off the air thanks to the usual ipstar satellite hassles ). I hadn't thought of an earlier rover cam, I will look up the specs an compare them with the Wade and Crow torque cams.
I have never driven a Rover V8 that didn't have power problems of some sort or other, so I don't know how it is supposed to perform anyway. (late 85 County with 5 speed box). All I know is my TD5 auto Disco leaves it behind on hills.
I would really like to get it right first time.
Thanks again.
Terry

Assuming your running carby setup, an injected cam makes for good low down torque. An injected cam around the 270 range aparently works excellent. See Piper cams page on it here Products - Piper Cams - Europe’s leading manufacturer of performance camshafts

Have just recently done a cam change in the Classic and wasnt a happy camper.

Do a search and you should find my post.

Cheers

Andrew.

Thanks Andrew,
Thats interesting re the injection camshafts.
I am still trolling through pages of cam data, the more I look the more variations there are.
Rover used a mix of cam timings for the V8 too, just to confuse me.
I see that Crow cams list the efi cam as a high torque cam for carb engines, so that looks like the direction to go.
Cheers
Terry

G'day Terry,

I found my V8 with the previous stage 2 camshafts to be very underpowered, especially on hills, however with the early Range Rover camshaft i reckon it now has enough power (well the power is in a more useable rev range). I can keep at the speed limit on most hills, even when fully loaded with passengers and gear. A 4.6 would still be nice though

Speaking of EFI cams, the 3.9L EFI cam was also suggested by a few experts. But then again some experts said NOT to go for that cam!

T.R. Spares here in Sydney use the pre-pollution camshafts from the early Rangies in all the V8's they rebuild. You could always give them a call on (02) 9709 5611 (i am in no way affiliated with this business). There was also a Land Rover mechanic in Canberra who swore by the pre-pollution camshafts, but i cannot find his phone number at the moment.

Overall i am very happy with the new torque my little V8 has.

Edward

Well, the decision is made, I bought a Crow 'hi torque' camshaft.

I was starting to suffer information overload there for a while, Rover have quite a few variations in their camshafts, its hard to tell one from another from the valve timing data, but they all seem to be around 60 deg. overlap and 280 deg. duration, except the efi cam which is slightly less.
These timings are not much different to aftermarket 'stage 1' cams.

The Crow cam timing is inlet 16-58 deg. and exhaust 65-19 with 254/264 duration, which matches my understanding of high torque timing.
I know there is more to it than that - like cam profile and lobe separation, but that info is hard to get.

Hopefully it will do the job, although I remember fitting a Dynotec stage 1 cam ino a RR I once owned, and it made not one scrap of difference. We will see.....

Thanks for the comments guys, I will let y'all know how it goes.

Cheers,
Terry