I have a 1983 Mustang 302 , headers with 600 Holley that I will be putting into my 55 Ford Fairlane . I will have a 4 speed manual trans with 4:10 rear . I want a good sounding cam with good lope for car shows and cruise nights . Hard or rough idle is no problem . This car is a toy , not a daily driver !! Will stand on it when I can get away with it ! just a good sounding cam with good low to mid range , 2000 to 5500 rpm on street .

I want to use flat tap cam , don't want to go roller cam .
Will run open exhaust when I can get away with it too .
Any and all good sugguestions will be very helpful !

Thank you for your time !

look into low end circle track cams- it'll give you a very noticible idle, great power too. Call Isky up and tell them what you want, and that you want to go with an agressive solid tappet cam and EDM lifters. If you want I can go through the lobe catalogs tomorrow at work and come up with something really nice.

That would be very helpful ! I have used Isky from back in the 70's and always had good performance from them with no problems . Here I have a great dirt track in my back yard and didn'r even think of what they use . They have a flea market end of the year this Sat and I always go and have found many good deals there . I live 1/2 mile from Lincoln Speedway in New Oxford PA. Really Abbottstown but nobody knows our tiny town .
I can also talk with the guys down there too .
I would still like all the help I can get before I go buy something !

Thank you for your time !

Just off the top of my head I'd say look for something with high 230's @.050" on the intake, a few more degrees on exhaust and a 110 LSA. I'll get more indepth tomorrow.

You might want to check this out,at Summit Racing you can get the Cam & Lifters for $100 part# SUM-K3600 I have this in my '84 302,this grind is the same as the Ford Motorsports cam that sells for $140 just for the cam.I have Hi-Po "K" code heads,RPM intake and a 625 Carb it is in a '54 Ford sedan,I have an AOD and a 4.10 rear,awesome accelelation and sounds very healthy.

Checked out 14 solid flat tappet CompCams at different CR.

At 9.0:1, 31-609-5 did best. 395 hp, 381 tq. 285/295, 250/260, .568"/.592", 106 LSA, 3000-7000, 4-spd or 3500 stall converter.

At 10.0:1, 31-609-5 did best. 412 hp, 396 tq. Same specs as above.

At 11.0:1, 31-335-4 did best. 420 hp, 403 tq. 294/294, 248/248, .560"/.560", 110 LSA, 2500-6500, 4-spd or 3000 stall converter.

Tests done with 600 CFM carb, RPM intake, headers, crummy heads.

Swapped to 9.5:1 CR, AFR 165 heads, 660 carb.
31-609-5 cam made 480 hp, 421 tq. Specs above. With good roller rockers, motor would make 500/440. Would easily run on pump gas with 0.035" to 0.045" squish.

Here's a smaller grind that would give you a little more midrange and be IMo more fun to drive. Ask Comp for lobes 6258 and 6400 On the intake and exhaust ground on a 110 LSA, you can go with a straight up ICL if you wish or advance/retard it 2 degrees to adjust to your tastes. EDM lifters are required on these profiles, and I HIGHLY recomend it to prevent excessive cam wear.

The specs would be 266/272 adv. 236/238 @.050" .534/.536 lift with 1.6 rockers, and .568/.570 with 1.7 rockers. THIS IS A SOLID CAM WHICH WILL REQUIRE PERIODIC LASH ADJUSTMENTS, if you don't want to work on your car let mw know and I can spec out a hyd. roller or a hyd. flat.

just switching to roller rockers with the same ratio will not gain 20 HP. Not ever. swapping to a full roller setup with the same lift and duration numbers will maybe gain you about 5 hp. They have good purpose, but they are not some sort of magical pixie dust that you sprinkle on your engine to gain 20 hp.

I'm pretty sure the '83 mustang has large chamber heads with lower compression ratio (maybe 8.5:1). It would probably be a good idea for you to pick up a set of heads off a 5.0L explorer, they are the gt40p casting and are one of the best flowing production 302 heads. They have the smaller chamber also. You can also use the 87-up mustang and truck e7te heads which are easy as dirt to find, but they will flow the same as your old heads.
If you do go for the gt40p heads you need to be careful which headers you use as some hit the spark plug.

If you're don't want to mess with the heads or compression ratio I would go with the isky 270 mega 318271 (221 degrees @ .050", .496" lift, 108LSA).
It should make some decent power and give you a noticable idle.

I tahnk all of the good advice and will have this winter to make a choice on what to use . This is something I am not in a hurry to do right now . I will be doing the engine swap around March because when the motor and trans is pulled I will have to get everything cleaned up , body work done and the painting done first .
Then I will tear the engine down and rebiuld it . The engine is the easy part for me, it's all the other work that is harder for me to do .

Thanks Again to all !

Jim

when you rebuild it shoot for a 10:1 compression ratio- a larger cam and steep gears is going to need it.

Well then, you need to argue with the engineers at Crane. They say they will and that's good enough for me. I value their knowledge and expertise just a wee bit over yours.