bwichman

Anyone know what the camshaft specs. are for a factory 1970 W30 with automatic transmission ? I think I have a car that has been "over cammed", can't get it to idle in gear without stalling. I saw an older post here from someone who had the same problem. Does anyone recommend a suitable factory type replacement ? My car has no power brakes and a 3.91 gear. Thanks.

joe_padavano

1970 W-30s with A/T got the same cam as the Toro W-34, P/N 400165, 57 deg overlap, 285/287 duration, .472/.472 lift. Without power brakes or A/C, you SHOULD have no problems with a more aggressive cam (including the "real" 328/328 W-30 cam), especially with that rear axle. Of course, M/T W-30s that year got the special Qjet that didn't have primary metering rods.

bwichman

Thank's Joe for the reply. I really don't know which way to go with this. This has been a problem since I bought the car. I have no idea what cam is in it now. I have changed all the vacuum lines, carb has been rebuilt and re-jetted, transmission rebuilt and has a 2400 stall converter in it. The car runs good at cruise and under full power, but will not idle in gear unless I bump it up to 1200 to 1500 rpm ( too high). I'm at my wits end. I saw here an older post that someone had almost the same problem, and the cam was the culprit.

Octania

Sounds like what my high compression 403 did. Refused to idle, it was either 1500 rpm, or else it would drop off, vacuum signal dropped off, idle got worse, vacuum got worse, stall.

I ended up correcting it with manifold vacuum to the distributor. Adjusted initial, mechanical limits, and VA limit to suit. After that, the vacuum stayed high even at a nice low idle around 800 RPM.

Think about it, ALL the carb's functions depend on a vacuum signal, so if your vacuum signal fails, it all goes downhill, like a vicious cycle.

It can't possibly hurt to try full vacuum to the distributor. The overheating stopped, the seat of the pants dyno said "much better" and the idle was [and still is] fine.

PS your post was entered at 4:42 pm!

bwichman

joe_padavano

This is your fundamental problem. It's difficult to make an informed decision without being informed. Unfortunately, you'll need to get a degree wheel and dial indicator and pull one valve cover to get an idea of the cam profile.

1Oldsfan

I had a 1970 442 W-30 with an automatic that had a 328/328 duration 475/475 lift cam from a 4 speed W-30 and had to idle it so high so that it wouldn’t stall in gear it bypassed the idle circuit I believe it was called, in order to idle it down and not have it stall we drilled a 1/8” hole in each primary throttle plate in the bottom of the carburetor so it could suck more air at idle.

BangScreech4-4-2

Welcome to CO. I've heard of that being done before, but if you'll check the date on these posts you'll see that your advice comes about six years too late to help OP -- he hasn't posted since 2014.

1Oldsfan

It was late last night when I joined, I didn’t even think to look at a post date. I am new to this and I am darn near computer illiterate, I have no idea what I am doing on how to navigate this site. Thank You for letting me know about being too late, I usually am! 😃

69HO43

Man, don't worry about it. With the infinite scroll and related thread thing, it's more likely to happen. And it's happened to others before coffee. It's not a bad thing. It was still relevant to the topic and all that information prior could have been posted today instead of years ago. Still good info. A lot of forums put a time limit on threads that are over a certain age they self-lock so nobody can be a "necromancer", or raise years-old threads from the dead, as they say. This forum does not. It's more amusing when someone was selling something and the new post says "do you still have it?" and it's from, like, 10 years ago. I guess it's worth a shot.

Staying on-topic: That must've been some kind of cam in your engine if you had to resort to bleed holes just to get it to idle. My brother used a 328 W-30 cam in one of his cars once and didn't have to resort to that. Don't know why there was a difference.

BangScreech4-4-2

Everybody does it. We just laugh at ourselves. It's okay -- just don't let it happen again!

VC455

If you do as Joe suggests (use a degree wheel and a dial indicator), you will get better accuracy if you use cam values at 0.050" lift instead of trying to interpret running duration (at 0.000" lift).

Here are the specs at 0.050" lift for the two W-30 factory cams:

1970 W-30 A/T (pn 400165): intake duration 223°, exhaust duration 223°
1970 W-30 M/T (pn 402569): intake duration 244°, exhaust duration 244°

BangScreech4-4-2

Great info, but again: thread is six years old. OP hasn't been heard from since 2014.

hurst68olds

threads are not ONLY for the original poster (it is an on line community discussion) - I want this info today & this thread covers that point

BangScreech4-4-2

Oh, all right.