I have a 77 302 engine. I have been doing research and found that the major differences between my engine and the 84-85 302 is the carburator, intake manifold (4 barrel rather than 2), the cam, and it doesnt have rail rockers. The camshaft is not as aggressive as the performer 302 cam the edelbrock sells, but it is much more aggressive than mine. The question I have is whether this cam ( the 84 mustang cam) will fit in my engine when I get to rebuild it? I would like to get my heads machined to accept the standard tip rocker arms that are on the 84 stang 302 so hopefully I will be able to match the entire valve train together. The reason I am asking this question is because there might have been something I left out or missed. Also the fire order is different for the stang engine. Will that be a problem (other than changing it at the distributor)? Thanks for the help!
Hi David, Well my understanding of it was that ford converted to roller tappets in '85 (and maybe i'm mistaken). If that is the case, you cannot use a roller tappet cam with standard hydraulic tappets. Otherwise, if they are both hydraulic tappets, you can definitely use the cam. You WILL have to change the firing order at the distributor, but as long as you have the cam it won't cause any problems. Personally, when i first rebuilt my engine, i got a performance cam out of PAW. It just so happens that the cam has the same specs as the Performer, but it was about half as much. There are a couple of "generic" cams out there that won't cost that much....make sure it's really worth it to put a used cam in a new motor!
Thank you very much for the advice. The cam that I would like to use is not a roller cam. Actually the reason I chose this particular cam is because it is a little more mild than the edelbrock one. I still want to maintain some kind of economy. The other thing is that my car is an emission control vehicle and I was told I might have a problem passing emissions with edelbrock's mildest cam.
Hey David, If it's not a roller cam then you're okay. Just make sure you switch to the correct firing order for the cam! As for emissions, i doubt you'll have problems passing with the Performer (or one like it) cam. Of course, it depends entirely on the tune. I think the Performer cam has very good specs for a daily driver with a little more power. If you know what you're doing, you can pass pretty much any emission inspection with just about any setup imagineable. Emissions standards are pretty lignient because they realize that not every car is in perfect shape. A really easy way to pass is to get a bunch of bottles (four ought to do it) of ethyl alcohol (sold as a yellow bottle of Heet at any parts store) and add them to an 1/8th tank of gas, then back your timing way down. Assumign everything else is in order, you can pass almost any car this way. Won't run very happy, but you're really only doing it on the way to the emissions shop anyways
Well thanks for the info. Maybe the performer cam would be a better choice. Hmm, the only other concern would be gas mileage. Will it effect it alot? Oh by the way, I went back home this weekend and started my car and now it is puffing blue smoke when i nail that gas. Its quite a bit too. So I guess that vibration I had will more than likely get solve. I am going to take an engine rebuilding course this summer and see if I can get that engine rebuilt.
I've been running the Performer cam for about ten years now. It's basically a low rpm torque-type cam, runs out of breath just under 5000 rpm using stock ratio rocker arms. You might even see an increase in mileage if you keep your gas foot off the floor. The cam has a higher than stock lift and if you use a degree wheel when you install it you'll see see the intake valve opens and closes sooner than stock, while the piston is still on it's way up. That way it builds more cylinder pressure for more torque. Edelbrock warns not to advance the cam timing but to install the cam "straight up" for that reason.
