Hey guys, I know my son will eventually want to improve the horsepower of his 79 350 and I needs some suggestions on where to start. The Rochester carb should be able to handle minor modifications so I was thinking about going with a very mild cam like the GM 3896929 which came in the 67-69 350 engines. What do you all thing of this cam or other suggestions would be appriciated. Just keep in mind this is a bone stock engine.

Rob

 

i would say put a 268 comp cam in it it will give it a good lope and add torque but you wont have to have a stall you can go with a 270 but they do not lope as hard as the 268 but in the engines that i have built they do have more torque but i think a young guy would much prefer a 268 go on youtube and look up cutlass warmed up 268 comp cam that is the last car i built with a 268 and it is a great lil cam although the 270 has a lil more torque the 268 sounds way better

 

you should be able to just put a cam and lifters and it would work out fine and sound like a frikkin race car lol

 

Thanks for your reply, I'm not looking to make this thing a strip car just give him a little more horses under the hood.

 

With a bone stock engine I wouldn't put anything too radical in it. It might sound great, but performance wont be enough better, and gas mileage will suffer tremendously. You can't really go wrong with the GM cam you listed, but there are non GM cams that will do as well, and cost much less than what Chevy or Comp wants for their cams. That's a very mild cam, and might not make much difference.
These cams would make good street power without having to change torque converters, or lose a lot of mileage:
Summit Racing SUM-K1102 - Summit Racing® Cam and Lifter Kits - Overview - SummitRacing.com
Summit Racing SUM-K1103 - Summit Racing® Cam and Lifter Kits - Overview - SummitRacing.com

 

An edelbrock performer cam would be perfect pick up some low speed torque the old Gm factory cams were put in engines with a lot more compression than the old LM1 another alternative would be a comp 260 or 252