Does anyone have the specs for a Crane Commander or Fireball cam? The cam would have been made in the 80's. It was solid / mechanical. From what I can see in the engine it appears pretty radical. (Cam was installed by the previous owner.) Building a 302 w/ 351 heads, radical solid cam, 11:1 compression.
When I bought my 68 Dart GTS 340, it had a Crane Fireball in it. But mine was a hydraulic. I got ahold of Crane and they sent me a cam card. It had something like 300 duration and 447 lift. I sold it to my best friend. He put it in his 70 Challenger 340, with headers and straight pipes. It was a bad *** sounding ride, especially at 130 mph.
When I first brought the Falcon home, a buddy and I got it to run for a bit. We changed the oil, put on a carb, adjusted the valves and added race fuel. After sitting for 30 years it fired up! Sounds healthy! And yes I know the carb is on backwards
You are the man! I looked everywhere for the specs! I knew it was pretty radical, but after looking at the specs, I'm not sure it will be very streetable. What's your guys thoughts? Too radical for street use or drive it and see if I like it? Everything is apart, so now would be the time to swap out the cam. Thanks again for finding that!
With 11 compression I'd run it. Especially if your running a manual or a 2200 stall converter with a 3:50 gear or so. Should be a blast to drive.....
If I were you I’d do some spec checking. Those pistons look like they have a dish in the center area and 4 pretty deep eyebrows to remove cc’s for compression. A 302’s stroke is pretty short and if the cc’s of the heads you are using are in the 50cc range you might have 11 to 1. Aluminum heads can stand it, iron on the street might cause a problem without a lot of overlap. I don’t trust guessing at compression I check everything and since you have the heads off now is the time. I use the formula on the Keith Black piston website..
Looks like specs more for a sbc. More up to date sbf cams generally favor more exhaust timing, like around 8-10 degrees more.
Thanks for the reply. I'm running port and polished 1970 351W heads. I believe they had 60cc chambers. I could be wrong.
According to the old muscle book you need domed pistons to get to 10.5 on a 302/351 combo. Milling the heads around .040 may get you to 10.0 comp..
Not sure, going by what the PO told me. He built the engine 30 years ago in High School. He remembered the Fireball cam, the heads and said the compression was 11:1. He used to run it with a tunnel ram and two 650 carbs. The old handwritten time slips were still in the glovebox. Still has the drag racing drive line and mini spoiler on it. Oh! And it has a gear drive. If you listen close to the video you can hear the gear drive. Probably going to take that off and put on a chain.
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