What would be a good choice of a cam kit? Suppliers? I've pulled the heads and am ready to pull the stock cam and replace it. And what kind of lifters/tappets? I'd like improved street performance and fairly smooth idle. Will be going with a stock intake manifold and 2-barrel card. Will probably have heads and manifold ported before installing.
Also, does anyone know where I can find those odd shaped "load-spreading" washers that go on the valve covers?
Sam
Hi Sam,
I'll answer your last question first. Your local Ford dealer should have some, since they were used on the 4.0 V6 in the Ranger.
The choice for a cam, is not as easy as it might seem. The stock cam is actually, a pretty good one. If you are going to go to the trouble of porting the heads and manifold, I would suggest going with the cam I always use. It doesn't have a smooth idle, but is very tractable, which is what makes for a very streetable car. Another comment I would add, is that once you port the manifold and heads, you should go with a four barrel carburetor to take advantage of the better breathing. If you keep the two barrel carb, you will not get much more performance than you have now, because it will be restricted by the smaller carb.
A set of resurfaced stock lifters, will work just fine. the valvetrain on this engine is pretty light, so you don't need to spend big bucks to be able to buzz it to 7,000 safely. I would recommend sending your cam and lifters to delta Engineering to have them refurbished. They do a great job, and don't charge a lot. They can regrind your old cam to whatever specs you might want. I would also have them rebuild your rocker shafts at the same time. I recommend using a set of new stock springs with, or without the larger valves.
Jose