24 replies to this topic

[Reidbook]

Hi all, has anyone had any road experience with this cam? If so if you wouldn’t mind sharing your experience with this cam, or have any other suggestions, please leave them here.

Thanks in advance, Adam

[Spider]

It's a very old Cam Profile these days.

 

They don't come on until circa 4000 RPM in a 1275 and even higher in a small bore engine.

 

While I've never had one in a road car, I did have one in the Race Car and was great on the track.

 

I have driven a few road cars with them in and frankly, IMO, they were just too wild and 'un-streetable'. IMO, anything that comes on over about 2500 - 2700 isn't street friendly.

[nicklouse]

Would not consider one for the road especially if you are during a road box. And then with a sccr box you will have fun pulling away unless you. Go for a 4.1 or 4.3 final drive and then your top speed will be low and at crazy revs.

[Orange-Phantom]

Our family car back in the day was dads red mini clubman estate. 1330, twin 1 1/2 SU's and a 649 cam. I remember it as great fun! Back then we really had virtually no speed limits and a heck of a lot less traffic which helped.
I was talking to dad about it a little while ago and although it was a little lumpy low down he never had any problems in the lower rev range and when it came on song it was just brilliant.
I would say these were different days and he would go for a tamer cam today.

What are you after driving wise?

[Reidbook]

Our family car back in the day was dads red mini clubman estate. 1330, twin 1 1/2 SU's and a 649 cam. I remember it as great fun! Back then we really had virtually no speed limits and a heck of a lot less traffic which helped.
I was talking to dad about it a little while ago and although it was a little lumpy low down he never had any problems in the lower rev range and when it came on song it was just brilliant.
I would say these were different days and he would go for a tamer cam today.

What are you after driving wise?

Torque and power but not overly rev hungry. Would want to be around the 120bhp without having to rev over 6500 if possible

Edited by Reidbook, 17 June 2019 - 09:02 PM.

[imack]

I'm running a 1380 with MED's FIA15 historic race cam (supposedly based around a 649) in a road car. I think its ok for the type of driving I do - pretty much early sunday morning blasts around country lanes where its easy to keep on cam and is great fun and extremely satisfying to drive. I'm straight into the lanes from my front door. Drove it in town the other week to crystal palace, ok going with no traffic, pretty grim and hot and sweaty coming home in traffic.
I'm using a sccr box, sc drops, sc 3.9:1 final drive and quaife atb diff.
Initially built it with 3.7:1 fd but 1st gear was just too tall, 3.9 is much better and feels a pretty good compromise but still a bit of a struggle to pull away on a steep hill with not much bottom end power, it tends to bog down or you give it some revs and all hell breaks loose! Its not much fun cruising at motorway speeds either.
It all depends on what you're prepared to put up with and to a large degree where you live and the sort of roads you'd be driving on. I dont think I could live with mine if I lived in a town and had to deal with traffic. The engines not really happy below 3000 rpm, likes to be over 4000 and comes on cam properly at 5000 and is happy to rev to 8500.
Previously had a 286 in a 1380, 3.44:1 fd, and s/gt close ratio box, that was probably about my limit for traffic driving.

[Cooperman]

To be absolutely blunt, a 649 is entirely unsuitable for a road car.
For a road car the maximum power is unimportant. It is high mid-range torque.
Far too much emphasis is placed on the bhp figure by the two 'Comics'. It is possible to build a real screamer of an engine with maybe 120 un-useable bhp and no good torque below around 4500 rpm, whereas an engine with 95 bhp and loads of torque at around 3000 rpm would be a pleasure to drive even with a standard gearbix and, maybe, a 3.44:1 final drive ratio.

[Dusky]

Id say you ll struggle to get 120 true horses under 6.5k rpm without a 7 port or forced induction.

[nicklouse]

Our family car back in the day was dads red mini clubman estate. 1330, twin 1 1/2 SU's and a 649 cam. I remember it as great fun! Back then we really had virtually no speed limits and a heck of a lot less traffic which helped.
I was talking to dad about it a little while ago and although it was a little lumpy low down he never had any problems in the lower rev range and when it came on song it was just brilliant.
I would say these were different days and he would go for a tamer cam today.

What are you after driving wise?

Torque and power but not overly rev hungry. Would want to be around the 120bhp without having to rev over 6500 if possible

Totally wrong cam then. You don’t want BHP you want torque.

[DeadSquare]

I see that you are in Scotland;  have the SNP banned snow?  if not, with 2" of slush and a C-AEA 648 you wouldn't be able to pull away.

 

Fit a supercharger.

[mikal]

Years ago I bought an operational rally mini. It was a 1963 car with a 1293cc engine with 648 camshaft and SCCR gearbox. I put carpet in it and resprayed it to hide the sponsors advertising. It went like a scalded cat. I lived on a fairly steep road however. The only way to get it going was a noisy wheel spinning launch otherwise it would just bog down. The trick was to park it facing downhill if possible. It was a great fun car, I should never have sold it..

[Tones61]

Hi all, has anyone had any road experience with this cam? If so if you wouldn’t mind sharing your experience with this cam, or have any other suggestions, please leave them here.

Thanks in advance, Adam

I would use a Kc 276 with 1.5 roller tipped rockers for road

[Cooperman]

 

Hi all, has anyone had any road experience with this cam? If so if you wouldn’t mind sharing your experience with this cam, or have any other suggestions, please leave them here.

Thanks in advance, Adam

I would use a Kc 276 with 1.5 roller tipped rockers for road

 

That can work OK even with a standard gearbox so long as a fairly low final drive ratio is used, no higher than 3.44:1. You will need to be using quite high revs a lot of the time to get the optimum performance from it.

Cam selection is a strange thing. On here we constantly hear of owners fitting cams which give peak power at, maybe, 6100 rpm ( as for the 276) but they rarely exceed 5500 rpm. Thus they have the wrong cam for their use. For a 276 you really need to change up at about 6300 rpm to get the best from it, but that will cause a lot of engine wear and a softer cam is usually more useful.

Decide what the car is for, then decide what rev range you wish to drive within, then look at the cam graphs to make the right selection.

With a 649 you need to be revving to 7000 rpm often to justify all the downsides.

[grizzler73]

I'm building a race engine and won't get near 120bhp! a good mid range cam like the Evo Minispares has good reviews. You want torque, makes it more drivable in all situations.

[Reidbook]

Cheers for all the comments guys! Supercharging is probably a smart move. Is the SC-12 any good? I’ve seen their expensive to import. And also, has any body had any experience with Swiftune’s SW8 cam? Considering the 649 is deemed to much for the road.