[blykins]

2bars, if you need help selecting a camshaft, I can help you. All of my cams are custom grinds, no matter if they are hydraulic flat tappet or solid roller. I take into account each and every engine parameter along with each and every car parameter, while listening to the concerns of the customer.

Bottom line is that your camshaft is too small for the application. At 224 @ .050" duration, you will have all torque and no horsepower, and as olddog pointed out, a .500" lift camshaft isn't taking advantage of the cylinder heads. Now, you don't have to go .700" to do that, but a .550-.600" lift camshaft is extremely common.

My customer up above with the 482 in the truck has a 224 @ .050" hydraulic roller on a 112 LSA and .570" lift. He can hook to his 10000 lb travel trailer, put it in 1st gear, let the clutch out without giving it any gas, and walk along side of it as it pulls his trailer around his yard....

You need more camshaft and there aren't many cams for an FE that work off the shelf. The tech guys at the camshaft companies have never seen an FE, much less built one or had one on the dyno.

olddog:

I have a few customers who are honest in their expectations. Not all of them chase numbers. With that being said, I always look at torque at around 3500-4000 because it's easy to do. On a street engine that peaks the hp at around 5500-6000, that's in the general ballpark of where the torque peak is going to be.

I ALWAYS take the time to recurve the distributor on engine assembly. I afford the time and it's part of my assembly process. The dyno process starts the pull above the total timing mark (I usually bring total in at 2500-2700, higher than that is a waste for a performance car) because it has to. Dynos are harder on engines than the actual cars and pulling the guts out of an engine at 2500 rpm proves nothing.