Why the "alphabet" hate?

LocoSway

New Member
Nov 23, 2002
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Anaheim, CA.
I grew up with the Ford letter cams being the defacto standard of comparison. In fact, the E-303 and X-303 is usually still used as a base comparison. Lately I see many people saying the cams are out dated, and that any of the comp cams XE line will do better.

I'm not certain this is correct. Yes, the XE series is newer and perhaps takes advantage of newer design technology, but is that really better?

Some Dyno2003 results are showing the letter cams doing better than several offerings from Comp Cams.
 
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Alot of it is in the setup IE heads/intake/etc. Sure, technology has brought us some better cams with more aggressive profiles, split duration and such. Some guys are making sick power with letter cams. I like them myself regardless of who likes/dislikes them. Now granted I'm not making huge power but mine is well mannered, pulls strong, and sounds great.

Sure I could dump 300 bucks for a custom and likely gain some ponies but I'm also not racing it and like mentioned above, not making astronomical numbers.
 
ive noticed alot of hate for the FMS cams as well, BUT, i also, have always had good gains from their cams. i had a 71 maverick with a c-4, 4.62 gears, a 5.0, B cammed, with a victor jr intake and a holley 650 dbl pmpr and no other mods, the car drove 45 minutes on I-75 to knoxville dragway ran consistent 8.50's on regular street tires all night long, then made the same drive home, back in the mid-late 90's... the car would embarass drivers of some very modded cars (H/C/I) back in the day, and leave them pissed off (doing so much with so little).

granted it wasnt a very good match, but for some reason it worked VERY well. ive had all of the FMS cams thru the years. i dont like the E very well, but have had good results from the rest. my current car has a comp XE and i like it too.

think about this, since the FMS cams have hit the market, there has been an influx of other cams which are better, so the price of FMS cams has come down, i dont think ive paid over $100.00 for a used FMS cam. since they are affordable, they attract the "will it make my car sound good?" poser crowd... thus they get a bad rap. but that doesnt make them a bad choice for a decent street car.
 
the letter cams do well with 90s tech considering thats when they were designed.

The e-cam works great with ported e7s/gt40s and a cobra/explorer intake . . .

f-cam works great with blowers or a turbo or two . . .

they serve their place and not to mention can be had for around $100
 
I actually just sold a B on ebay for like 150shipped, @ 2 months back, I was really surprised, only expected it to go for like 50 bucks

Ive ran the B, X, Z and the holley systemax cam. I really like the Z, I do wanna try a TFS stage 2 though.
 
The letter cams are out of date. They have the same duration and lift on both intake and exhuast. Our 5.0 really like more on the exhuast side. They dont have enough valve overlap for blower or turbos at only 110 degs. They sound bad ass though. I had a e-303 with 1.7 rr and a blower. Swaped it out a couple times and finally made the best power with a Comp cams blower grind.