camshaft

I have recently aquired a 77 firbird esprit. I took the old 305 out and found a chevy 350 to put in it. I have decided to put in a edelbrock cam in it because i am going with edelbrock for my intake and carb as well. But the things i am having a hard time with is the duration and lift of the cam. I am running stock heads, rockers, and low profile valve covers. Can you guys help me with some suggustions of what duration and lift will work best for me. Keep in mind this is mainly a street vehicle that will be at the track everyonce in a while. Thanks.

What type of track, 1/4 straight, or roundy-round?

We need to know the details, such as how you are going to drive the car, what weight the car has, what transmission it has, what the final drive axle ratio is, what heads and valves your engine has, etc. Not even the best car guy can guess this information for you, (in my best Johnny #5 on Short Circuit voice), we need input.

To add to Silicon212's advice, on target as usual, the cam mfg can advise you on the best cam based on you combo and intended usage, they have a techline set up just for this.

An Edelbrock Performer (Performer RPM?) would be a good choice.
Edelbrock carb? I wouldn't use one. I know of several people that tried them and swapped over to Holleys instead. Use a Holley 650 double pumper on a 350 cid.
I am a true believer in Competition Cams' products. I have used the 268H cam in several "stock" builds with great results. From daily beaters to hay-hauling farm trucks, they performed amazingly well. You could go a step up with the 270H and still have a stock idle quality w/good torque. Play it safe and don't plan on something too big. It's always best to be under cammed than over cammed.
By all means, at least step up to a set of stainless valves. It might not seem important, but they do make a difference. Go one step farther if you can and have a machine shop back-cut them as well.

Also look at the specs on some of those "RV" grind cams. These were supposedly made for tow vehicles, but some of them had some interesting numbers to them. The thing that they were streetable, had a lumpy enough idle,responded well and worked with 100% stock parts.

Bob

yeah edelbrock carbs are good for just getting it to run good but if you tinker with a holley for a few minutes and set it up right, it will beat the living hell out of an edelbrock. hell, when you get the cam in there you could drop a couple hundred and have that bad boy dyno-tuned to perfection... assuming theres a shop that offers that near you. here in omaha nebraska most of the shops only tune fuel injected motors because they're too lazy

I'm partial to Holleys myself and have a few around the shop put away in the boxes they came in. Once you know your way around them, they're nice carbs. I have a spreadbore for the GM Qjet replacement, a square bore 4 barrel for the Fords and a 2 barrel that I can use on the GM manifolds with an adapter. Call me old school, but they're all set up for manual chokes.

Bob