Camshafts: What effect does increased lift have on performance?

Spadman said

A friend who does port work flowed my J heads whe I got done with them. Just as a favor and I didn’t get a full written report. He said he got 262 at 500 and the same at 600. I had heard that these heads don’t improve past .500. Just my experience. I put 1.6 rockers with my .484 lift Mopar Performance cam to up the lift a bit and quicken the opening. Duration at fifty as I remember is 238. My performance goal is to be respectable. Not a race car.

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And I’m going a cam for a street car right now that will be in the .550-.560 lift range depending on the lobe.

It will be reliable and make more power than if I gave up .030ish in lift. In fact, I may look at some lobes in the .580 lift range so my net lift is closer to .550.

This nonsense that when a head breaks over you stop lifting the valve. That’s incorrect.

If more guys were flowing heads with the intake manifold on they’d learn the heads don’t break over nearly as much or not at all.

And…never mind.