Setting Cams on a NA Engine

I've read a lot about how to degree the cams in modular engines, but the actual settings are never (at least in my research) discussed. I'm planning to keep the car NA and add on the typical bolt-ons and tune to improve performance. The car is just a toy and only street driven at this time as there is no track close by.

I'm looking at several scenarios:

1. Use the existing 01 cams and just degree them for maximum performance.
2. Find some 96 cams and degree them.
3. Buy aftermarket (if I can afford them).

For scenarios 1 and 2 I'm interested in what the cam settings should be to maximize power without hurting drive-ability.

Recommendations for scenario 3 would be appreciated. I'm not planning to change springs and again want to maintain drive-ability on the street. From what I've read, I want to stay away from re-grinds.

going to 96-98 cams wont gain much of anything and if you're already pulling it apart to degree it will be worth getting some custom grind cams.

you can pick up 96-98 cheap compared to Comps or custom.
Set Exhaust at 114, Intake 108-110.

98_Undertaker said:

going to 96-98 cams wont gain much of anything and if you're already pulling it apart to degree it will be worth getting some custom grind cams.

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^this.

if you are dynoing at about 275+ already, I suspect degreeing the oem cams will help very little; however, it would be a valuable exercise for you.

106060 comp cams properly degreed are recommended by na svt (todd warren) for daily driver running in the oem rpm range. He may also have some custom cams that would work better.

I would pm him.

na svt also has a procedure to degree the cams without spending a ton of cash on adjustable cam gears and such.

Please keep us posted, as your mods are of keen interest to me..and part of the "na svt recipe" I compiled.

yup.

Thanks for the replies. Winter is setting in here and I probably won't be doing any engine work until the spring. I've seen many of Todd's postings but wasn't aware of his cam timing method without adjustable gears.

My 01 runs pretty good for stock. I've never dyno'd it to find out exactly what it is putting out. I like the idea of keeping the car NA. It takes more work, precision, and sometimes money, to increase power without power adders.

It takes a combination of parts that work together. Correct intake to match the cams and long tubes to match both of those. Also different ways to go depending on what you plan to do with the car.

As money allows, I was thinking Kooks long tubes with Kooks catted X-pipe. The question would be 2.5" or 3" collectors.

52merc said:

Thanks for the replies. Winter is setting in here and I probably won't be doing any engine work until the spring. I've seen many of Todd's postings but wasn't aware of his cam timing method without adjustable gears.

My 01 runs pretty good for stock. I've never dyno'd it to find out exactly what it is putting out. I like the idea of keeping the car NA. It takes more work, precision, and sometimes money, to increase power without power adders.

Click to expand...

Cloyes Shaft Keys P9139 - SummitRacing.com (2ea)
Cloyes Timing Camshaft Sprockets S790HP9 - SummitRacing.com (2ea)
Trick Flow® Replacement Adjustable Crank Sprockets TFS-51800505 - SummitRacing.com
ARP Cam Bolt Kits 256-1001 - SummitRacing.com

52merc said:

As money allows, I was thinking Kooks long tubes with Kooks catted X-pipe. The question would be 2.5" or 3" collectors.

Click to expand...

Primary diameter needs to match what rpm range you want. 1-5/8 is better for low and mid range if your spinning it higher rpm 1-3/4 or 1-7/8

na svt (todd warren), was great when I needed help timing my cams. He helped me over the phone, text and email. I used the products used in post#8.

Google "Gibtec Aluminator" for a pretty detailed section on how to do it. Its by no means "Army proof" but its a good reference. Just to note the Cloyes gears are no longer available and the TFS crank gears are known to be a weak link. NA SVT and others will tell you to use the stock gears. Stock crank gears and then file/shim the stock cam gears.

I've read the Gibtec Aluminator thread. Actually took all the posts and edited into a MSWord document for my reference.

Don’t understand why cloyes stopped making them I’m about ready to start tearing mine apart so I guess this is another piece to a puzzle i need to figure out


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It appears that filing and shimming is the only alternative.

From what I have heard Cloyes is looking at bringing them back. Even so, from what I'm told by multiple builders, they have a lot of slop in them. One guy even posted a pic of a set of cloyes gears with all the teeth fully sheared off.

All of them said get some feeler gauge stock or a few cheap feeler gauges and some tin snips. File and then shim with the feeler gauge pieces. ARP bolts. I mean its a lot cheaper.

Well I was excited about doing this myself someday.
But I'm not comfortable filing/shimming these things myself.
Guess I will wait for a YouTube diy to come out...hint hint hint