increased rocker ratio vs bigger cam

[camaroman1181]

aight, so im bout to undertake a cam swap in my car. its a 95 3.4L. I'll be porting and polishing the heads, along with putting an entirely new valvetrain in, aka new cam, lifters, springs, pushrods, retainers, locks, timing set, and roller rockers. However, im wondering if its better to go with a bigger cam and keep the stock ratio rockers or do you gain anything by going with a smaller cam and a 1.6 ratio rocker? has anyone done any testing on this? also, if i went with something around a .463/.474 (intake/exhaust) lift cam with 1.6 rockers, would i encounter clearance issues with the factory bottom end and mildly shaved heads? thanks for any help on this. I'm trying to get the cam by friday so any input by then woudl be great. thanks

Phill

[StudlyCamaro]

i would reccomend a set of roller rockers , just for freeing up a little more power as opposed to the stock stamped steel units

however if you are going to be putting in a cam you will not really need a higher ratio rocker arm, the cam can be made to provide more lift

no you shouldnt have any clearance problems with that size cam

[camaroman1181]

cool.. thanks for the info but are you aware of any advantage of going with a smaller cam and larger rockers as opposed to a larger cam and smaller rockers? Wouldnt the valve acceleration rates be increased with the larger rockers? would this affect air flow into the chamber in any noticable way?

I realize that a larger cam now would allow me to go to a larger rocker later so im swaying towards the larger cam. currently also looking at comp magnum roller rockers... full rollers arent in my budget right now...

[StudlyCamaro]

yes the valves will move faster with either a larger cam or a larger ratio'ed rocker arm, the reason for a larger ratio rocker arm is to exagerate the lift of the cam, and not have to change out the cam

i cant think of any reason that a smaller or larger rocker arm would be advantageous is the total lift of the cam+rocker arm were equal

i agree with the idea of smaller now so if you wanna get more agressive in the future you wont have to change the cam out again, the cam grind you suggested isnt too radical so you could very well want to go more agressive in the future, and the rocker arms might satisfy that fix

[38fury]

You want to get your lift out of the cam not the rockers, it puts a lot of stress on your valvetrain to do that. 1.6 rockers would be just fine though, if you go too big is where you can run into problems.