B303 And Bbk Ssi Omfg

88LX5.Oh

15 Year Member
Dec 30, 2011
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Arkansas
I'm thoroughly disappointed.

Back when I put the engine together for my car about a year ago (before I came on here and really learned what a good set up was) I was flipping through Summit pages and stumbled upon the letter cams. Me and my dad both liked the B303 because it showed it started making power at 1500 RPM. I thought "awesome, I have a daily driver and this will be a good cam for low end torque", well today I was messing around on here and someone brought up the B303. I thought I would look up the specs again for sh its and giggles since I forgot it. Well when I went to Summits website and searched B303, I learned that I either read it wrong in the Summit mag a year ago, or Summit had a typo. Because the B303's advertised power range is 3000-6000 RPM.

I also went with the BBK SSI intake. Now this I did no research on when I put it on. A guy my dad knew was selling it off his '95 Cobra (he was going back to stock with the engine) it came with 70 MM throttle body, fuel rails, and 24 lb injectors all for $400. Couldn't pass it up. Since I found out the ACTUAL power range on my cam, figured I would search how the SSI does on a dyno. Found this http://www.mustang50magazine.com/techarticles/m5lp_0505_ssi_intake_manifold_dyno_test/viewall.html

So, basically I have a cam designed for over 3000 RPM and an intake that works good on the top end too. And all this is on a street car that I had planned to be a nice daily driver with a lot of low end torque. I didn't want a top end screamer.

Anybody have an idea on what this things driving habits are gonna be when I'm driving it in town?
I'm still waiting on it to come back from the damn body shop or I'd go out and drive it to see how it's gonna do.
 
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I think you got the e and b cam confused. Or their was a typo. I don't think it will be a terrible daily though. Lots of guys running b cams. Let us know how it works out.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FMS-M-6250-E303/

2500-5500
That's a little closer to the 1500 I THOUGHT I saw. I'm gonna have to find one of my Summit mags and see where the heck I went wrong.
And I'll definitely let ya know how it works out. If I ever get the car back from paint and body.
 
Use that B cam with 1.7 rockers. You'll like what you get. Set the cam up +4°. It helps a little with the low end torque.
Wish I could do the 1.7's. But the springs in my heads can only handle .500" lift and 1.7's and the B make .510". Plus my PTV clearance would probably be non-existant because I'm running a late 90's Explorer motor that Edelbrock said would most likely need flycut even with 1.6's (thankfully I didn't). And I'm not gonna rip back into the motor. If I was to go so far as to take everything off the front just to advance the cam timing, I'd just change the cam to something I would actually benefit from.

I'm going to keep the motor how it is and just deal with it because I'm tired of putting money into it. I just wanna drive the thing.
 
Advertised RPM range for any single component, including cams, is a sales gimmick. RPM range is determined by the combo as a whole, i.e. how the parts work together.

That said, the letter cams are obsolete by about 20 years. You won't hate the combo you put together, but you could have done better on the cam. Just drive it and enjoy it, and don't worry about "low end torque". An NA 302 will never have gobs of low end torque, regardless of what cam you put in it. You want LET, build a stroker. ;)
 
Advertised RPM range for any single component, including cams, is a sales gimmick. RPM range is determined by the combo as a whole, i.e. how the parts work together.

That said, the letter cams are obsolete by about 20 years. You won't hate the combo you put together, but you could have done better on the cam. Just drive it and enjoy it, and don't worry about "low end torque". An NA 302 will never have gobs of low end torque, regardless of what cam you put in it. You want LET, build a stroker. ;)
This answer makes me feel a little bit better lol.
 
What tranny?
What gears?

I see a REAL nice setup you got going there, especially for a 5 speed and 3.55-4.10 gears.
It should DD just fine so long as your driving is not interstate.

For building a "torquey" engine, none of your parts go that way.
Even your valve sizes are high rpm for a 5.0 based engine.
 
I've got the factory T5, just been rebuilt. And 3.27 gears eventually. Right now it still has the factory rear with 3.08's but it wont be under there for very long after I get the car back. I wanted 3.55's or 3.73's but I got a whole '96 GT rear end with brakes for $200. Can't beat that
 
Well, it's going to suck in town. You're going to need to learn how to ride the clutch out a little further when you take off than you're used to. And if you try to drive it at low RPM it's going to buck. From the sound of things, you have built what could possible be, the most mismatched parts that have ever been assembled. You have a high RPM cam and intake with heads with too big valves and too weak springs. Don't take it personal, I just don't like the responses I got to my post. I was only trying help. Have fun.
 
I find I am quite satisfied with how mine behaves on the road. Not an issue. I have that set-up with a 3:73 and It's tame, sounds good and doesn't act dumb. If you remember the cam and intake were not my choice but I have them and for now they work. You will be fine. Oh and I have 19lb injectors with a 70mm TB and 73mm MAF.
 
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Just so you all know, I also have a similar combo. I also know how it acts and I did advance my cam and have matching GT40P heads with a Explorer intake. When I drive my car, it's fine. When my son-in-law drives the car it acts stupid because he's trying to drive it like you'd drive a Toyota. He tries to short shift it and the car bucks going all the way up the road until the RPM build. Then he shifts again and the whole process repeats. He stalls it when he tries to take off half of the time.

If you intend to keep this combo for a long time I recommend 3.73 or 4.10 gears if it's going to be primarily driven in the city. The gears are torque multipliers and you're really going to need as much torque as you can get.

The ultimate fix is to get a set of GT40(p) heads and replace the Edelbrocks.
 
Well, it's going to suck in town. You're going to need to learn how to ride the clutch out a little further when you take off than you're used to. And if you try to drive it at low RPM it's going to buck. From the sound of things, you have built what could possible be, the most mismatched parts that have ever been assembled. You have a high RPM cam and intake with heads with too big valves and too weak springs. Don't take it personal, I just don't like the responses I got to my post. I was only trying help. Have fun.

I was 17 at the time. At least I didn't stick a big as* cam in a stock engine and then come on here asking why my car ran like schit.

You didn't like my response? Someones touchy. All I did was say that if I was going to go through all the trouble of taking everything off the front of the motor, I would go a little further with it and actually change the cam.
 
Okay..I'm your huckleberry. Since when does advancing the cam and adding lift and duration increase low end torque? You are telling him to add to the problem. You have a similar combo? What a B cam? You have an Explorer intake, GT40P heads, he has a SSI intake with Edelbrock heads. :scratch: And you would replace the Edelbrocks with a set of GT40P's? Really?
 
I find I am quite satisfied with how mine behaves on the road. Not an issue. I have that set-up with a 3:73 and It's tame, sounds good and doesn't act dumb. If you remember the cam and intake were not my choice but I have them and for now they work. You will be fine. Oh and I have 19lb injectors with a 70mm TB and 73mm MAF.
Thank you. I was hoping someone would come on here with a really close set up to mine. I remembered you had the SSI but didn't figure you had the same cam too
 
I can see that this will very quickly turn out just like my fox handling thread did.
I ask a question, such as "How good will this work?" and get tons of suggestions on things to do different when I've already got everything ordered/bought/installed.

If anybody has or will give suggestions, cool. Thank you. But you're too late. Everything has already been installed and has been for over a year now. I just want a simple answer like what Gearheadboy, Ratio, or Nik gave me.


Also, what's the deal? I get one person saying it has the potential to be a real nice set up so long as I get a higher ratio gear set, and then one person says I have a poorly missmatched set up. So which is it?
 
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