Ram Air 4 clone cam favorite
 

Any favorites of the various manufacturers versions of this cam. Melling, Comp or? Motor 455, 10:1, 6x4 heads 247cfm/180 @ .500, Modified 66 tripower, 4speed, 3.42, oversized RA exhaust manifolds. Don't want roller cam just a good HFT. Street driven 65 with occasional trips to track. Seen a lot of mention for Crower 60919.

I am using the 60919 with Crower Cam Saver lifters and its all you need for the street in my opinion. My engine is kinda similar to yours.

Melling SPC-8 is the real deal. Overlap sammy!

I too have similar combo, but I dont like the cam I have. Does this combo buck and chug in 25 mph zones in first?

No not at all. I have the TKO600 and it will pull 5th at 40 mph with no buck

One of the gents on here has mentioned that the Crower 60919’s that he has seen recently aren’t necessarily ground correctly, maybe he can clarify?
https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...ighlight=60919

I used the Crane muscle car series 041 ...but that's been a LONG time ago.

seems I recall reading a thread that it was stated all 041 cams are pretty much the same, most made by CMC. blue ta

The Melling SPC-8 is suppose to be an OE replacement. Probably gets my vote if you want a RA 4 cam. Side by side comparison the SPC-8 I have had used a different cam core with a wider lobe. It’d been 6 years though, I don’t know if that is still the case. CMC grinds the Melling, Compcams, Edelbrock, Lunati and Summit 041 grinds. Specs are the same as the Melling, but I think those others that are not OE replacements use the normal narrow lobe core.

The Crane and a Crower 60919 both are different than the Melling. Crower is more aggressive, Crane is less aggressive.

I prefer the Crane "Blueprinted" version

X2. I agree, I think it is top dog of the RA4 grinds. Sucks that Crane is no longer around.

I was just going to say the same thing, I know a lot of folks recommend the Crane version but they haven’t been available for a few years, I wonder if you could have one custom ground but then I question what makes this version so much better than all of the other 041 choices like the Melling, Crower, etc

The Crane version has a bunch of assymetric’s in the design, and shuts the valves a lot more gentle. The way it is ground it should have the broadest power band of those grinds.

The others are more symmetrical designs. Opening and closing ramps are the same.

Wondering out loud here but could Bullet or any custom cam grinder ground those same characteristics in one of their cams or is it in the lobe that Crane used?

I used the Crane blueprint version about 20 years ago and it is still running very well.

Compcams might have the master for it someplace.

It would take some effort to copy it, probably more effort than most cam grinders would be interested in.

There are also a few old grinds that a core does not exist anymore either. The Crane 041 is odd enough that could be an issue too. Wolverine had a pretty renowned flat tappet cam a little bigger than the RA4 grind that people have wanted to copy but as I recall John Partridge at Bullet said there is not a core available to replicate it.

Jay,
Is this the Wolverine Cam?

Stan

Identical to the Crane HIT 284281 "High Intensity Series" and later "PowerMax".



https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/2...923/9DNB3x.jpg

Yep. That’s the one. There are a couple cams that are close in specs, but don’t appear to be exactly the same. That 294B Crane could be the same. It does look close.

Two profiles in HP series sure looked close too. I think I remember being told they were different.

Well, I looked it up and CMC only lists one flat tappet cam core for a Pontiac now. So I assume the Melling SPC-8 core is the same as all of the flat tappets now. So if you end up going with a white box RA4 cam ground at CMC, just probably makes sense to find the cheapest one, because they are all going to be the same.