Pinto Car Club of America

I have a 2.3 And I wish to change the cam,  The book say's to remove the head first is that only because of clearance reasons while in the car?  Also I wanted to change the carb and manifold I currently have a 340cfm autolite 2100,  do you have any suggestions?   thanks

I'll assume your 2.3 is in a Pinto.
You do not have to pull the head to change the camshaft.  You will have to disconnect the motor mounts and drop the radiator. Depending on your exhaust system, you may have to disconnect it also.  You should then be able to jack the engine high enough for the cam to clear the radiator support.
Oh, PS...
Be sure to cover the oil drain hole at the back of the head when you remove the cam retainer screws!

Thanks for you help,  I was told when I purchased this engine it had some mods is there any way to visually tell if I already have a aftermarket cam?

It would be pretty hard to tell without pulling the cam, unless you have a roller in there.  No Pinto came with a roller cam.
The identification marks are located at the very back of the cam, on the surface that faces the firewall.
There should be some letters or numbers that are either scribed or stamped into the metal, and are usually not clearly visible.
For example, a Competition Cams camshaft would have something like "CC264H", or a Motorsport cam may have "M-2650-A237".
I don't have a stock cam handy to tell you what kind of ID marks it would have.