Project Street Reaper Gets A Summit Racing Camshaft
If you read the first part of this series, you already know this project started with a mystery car, a small-block, and a teardown that revealed a better foundation than expected. Now that the block is stripped down and inspected, it is time to move deeper into our SBC 350 rebuild and take care of the internal upgrades I had planned long before I ever turned the first bolt.
This round includes a cam swap, a new Summit Racing timing set, ARP main cap bolts, a fresh Melling oil pump, new seals, and a one-piece Fel-Pro oil pan gasket. Basically, all the stuff you want to do while the short block is exposed, but swear you are only doing because it is “already apart.”
Clearing The Way For The Work
To remove the timing cover for a cam swap, the oil pan either needs to be lowered or taken off completely. I chose to remove the pan because I also planned to install ARP main cap bolts, replace the rear main seal, and install a new Melling oil pump. The K-member sits directly in the way of the oil pan’s path, so the engine had to be lifted about four to five inches to create the clearance needed to slide the pan out.
This required unbolting the motor mounts and lifting the engine slightly. While this can be a good opportunity to replace the motor mounts, second-gen Camaros make this difficult because the bushing portion of the mount is bolted to the K-member with nuts that are blocked by the control arms. It is possible to change them with everything in place, but it is a challenging job and not something I tackled during this step.
Oil, Messes, And Why There Are No Photos
Once the pan was finally out of the way, the timing cover came off next. This is the part of our SBC 350 rebuild that I wish I had more pictures of, but the combination of oil, assembly lube, and gravity made my phone basically useless. My hands were covered, and the touchscreen refused to acknowledge my existence, so you will just have to imagine how much of a mess everything was.
Under the timing cover, I found a double roller timing set already installed. It looked reusable, but I plan to degree a future roller cam once the car is further along, and the Summit Racing True Roller set I had on hand allows for that. For this flat-tappet cam, I am not degreeing it. The goal is to get the car running again, not to spend the afternoon chasing timing marks.
Installing The “Hot For Teacher” Stick
The star of the day was the Summit Racing SUM-K1107 hydraulic flat tappet camshaft. Old-school guys would look at the specs and call this a “Hot For Teacher” cam. It has that rowdy, slightly irresponsible, idle that makes a small-block sound like it is always one bad decision away from a dragstrip pass. At 234 and 244 degrees of duration at .050, and lifts of .487 and .508 with 1.5 rockers, it is a legit street and strip grind that really wants to live in the 3,000 to 6,500 rpm range.
Those lift numbers with a 1.5 rocker are already healthy, but “enough” felt like a strong word, so I decided to bump things a bit with a set of 1.6 PROFORM roller rockers. The 1.5 roller rockers went back into the “maybe someday” pile. The math is simple. Take the lobe lift and multiply by the new rocker ratio. In this case, going from 1.5 to 1.6 works out like this:
- Intake lift: 0.487 with 1.5 rockers becomes roughly 0.520 inch with 1.6s
- Exhaust lift: 0.508 with 1.5 rockers becomes roughly 0.542 inch with 1.6s
There is plenty of science and plenty of forum arguments that say stepping up the rocker ratio is not always worth the cost, especially if the rest of the combo is not built around it. In my case, the PROFORM 1.6 roller rockers were already on the shelf from a previous build. I wanted to use them, so I did. Sometimes SBC 350 rebuilds are about carefully planned decisions, and sometimes it is about looking at parts you already own and saying, “Why not?”
The Timing Debate I Will Not Be Part Of
There are two types of people working on small-block Chevys. One insists the timing gear dots should be at six and twelve o’clock. The other swears they both belong at twelve. I refuse to join this argument. As someone who grew up shuttling between divorced parents, I do not need to referee another disagreement or risk being blamed for another split. Set it how you want. If your valves are not hitting pistons, I am proud of you.
Securing The Cam Gear
Flat tappet camshafts do not require a cam button because the tapered lobes naturally keep the cam positioned in the block. Even though cam walk is not a concern here, the three bolts that secure the timing gear to the camshaft still need to be protected from loosening. To keep those bolts secure, I use two safeguards.
The first is the Moroso camlock plate. This plate installs over the bolt heads, and its tabs are folded over to create a physical stop that prevents the bolts from rotating. The second safeguard is Loctite. I typically use blue Loctite for this type of installation, although red Loctite can be used if someone is fully committed to their cam choice and timing gear placement. Together, the camlock plate and threadlocker ensure the timing gear bolts stay in place during operation.
Blame The Cam Sounds For My Distraction
I admit part of the reason I forgot to document half of this process is that my brain was already fantasizing about the chop this 1107 cam will make once the engine fires. Add the smell of fresh assembly lube and the mental soundtrack of bald eagle noises behind a Holley 750, and I was operating with the clarity of Squints staring at Wendy Peffercorn in The Sandlot. Logical thoughts did not stand a chance.
A Preview Of What Is Coming Next
The final step of this portion of our SBC 350 rebuildwas buttoning up the timing set, reinstalling the timing cover with a fresh Fel-Pro gasket, and preparing the short block for its new top end. You can see in the pictures that the build will be running AFR aluminum heads. The top-end portion will focus on the head specs, the intake setup, and how the combination is meant to run on the street.
Part 3 of our SBC 350 rebuild will get into that top-end assembly. For now, the short block is sealed, the 1107 cam is in place, and the engine is one step closer to setting the mystery car’s tires back on the pavement.
