What will new cams do?

[jesh]

I'm thinking about getting Corksport Intake & Exhaust Camshafts and am courious as to how exactly they will change the performance of my P5 throughout the powerband. How will it run at low rpm's as well as high. Thanks

[Mike R]

From what I've seen the top end will gain a few HP and you will loose a bunch of low end torque and power.

Also do some searching, the benefit of those cams is debated quite a bit. There are a few other supporting mods to do to get any real gains.

[akhilleus]

If u can afford to get custom cams and cam gears. If not the corksport cams will work... but gains are generally in the top end... but u will see nice gains if u have other things done...intake, exhaust, header, etc...

[eting_pro5]

This question would be perfect for the CAR KNOWLEDGE section......TOO BAD WE DON'T HAVE ONE!!!!!!

[Moeed]

Where is twilight? he is the man when it comes to cams. (whoa, that ryhmns)

[iluvmacs]

The only problem is that he had headwork and other mods done too. Cams without any other mods will kill your low end torque, shift the torque curve to the right (higher revs), but you won't see much if any hp gains.

When you get a better exhaust, maybe an intake, and quite possibly some fuel control, you'll see a much better top end, and honestly, you probably won't lose much low end due to the other mods.

Get custom cams ground. Tell a cam manufacturer what you want your car to do. I don't think it's worth the money to get the corksport cams. They're pretty close to stock in terms of lift, and only have a bit more duration (please correct me if i'm wrong).

[Mike R]

This question would be perfect for the CAR KNOWLEDGE section......TOO BAD WE DON'T HAVE ONE!!!!!!
Nah, but PERFORMANCE would be a good place for it....LOL

[akhilleus]

Iluvmacs is right. I got the jdm intake cam..it had decent gains, nothing phenomenal, 7-8whp maybe .. and now i kinda wish i had one custom ground. But my exhaust cam is on its way back from crower. I would recommend them. They can do blanks and regrinds. I got a reground stock exhaust cam. I will post the specs at some point. They werent able to go as big as i originally wanted... cause of the cams limits, but they got close. It will be a modeate grind and should complement the jdm intake cam. In reality i expect nice gains once the exhaust is larger due to its influence on how much of a charge can be pulled into the engine, right now my exhaust cam is stock.
but here are some specs for whats currently available and what is stock

jdm intake cam adds 12 deg duration same lift as stock 210duration .344lift
the "mazdaspeed" exhaust cam is really just a repinned(do a search) stock intake cam so it is 198deg duration and .344"lift
the stock exhaust cam is 200deg duration .323"lift
perfworks has come out with cams that are more aggressive than any of these... and they are complementary... probably 215-220 duration .350-.355" lift is my educated guess

[Subghetto]

akhilleus how much is the custom cam going to run you? and how big can we go in both the intake and exhaust cam?

BTW.. I'am waiting on the wanger cams I hear those will be sweet just not sure when they will be produce them and if they will do cam-gears as well.

[TheJackyl]

What will help low end? I wanna be able to pick up speed really quick, I thought cams would help that?

[Captain KRM P5]

cams without cam gears aren't going to net you much of real anything at any RPM. for the money, get the cam gears along with the cams.

[twilightprotege]

moeed - i was off getting married :D

most things have been covered in this thread, but all i need to add is...make sure the exhaust cam is BIGGER than the intake cam (i farked up on this originally, but that'll be fixed soon enough). atleast (if the lift is the same) 15-20degrees more duration

sub - the limit on our cams is about 280 degrees duration AT VALVE SEAT any more than that you're asking for power losses. i have 280deg duration at valve seat with my cams. they are about 220 deg duration @ 0.050" which is the numbers akhilleus was talking about.

[StuttersC]

The J-spec cams are not that aggressive people. They are factory parts! You will not lose a "ton of low end power."

You will gain some top end torque, which some feel is a needed benefit. If you get the cams, get the intake manifold as well. They work well together!

[midnightracr]

Yeah, OR you could wait until Perfworks & Andy come out wih there cams. They will have Stage1 & Stage2 cams. The Stage2 cams will be much more aggressive & will need valve springs if I'm not misstaken. They are solid billet so you know they will last. Also you won't have to worry about what the best degrees would be as in the intake and exhaust side if you were to get a custom job done. Nick & Andy have spent a lot of hours on dyno & reasearching which would be the best. Stay tuned beause I think they will be comming out with N/A cams here vey shortly & FI a little later. Those little dinky cams you speak of are comming off the Protege's from Japan. Th one's Nick (Perforks) & Andy are making are more peformane cams which is what you are looking for. Save your money for when these come out. I promise you if you buy the Corksport cams you will be highly dissappointed because they yeild very little if any in performance. Well maybe 5hp but that's o worth it if you ask me

[iluvmacs]

Ok, so we have a seat to seat duration limit of 280 deg. Is that because of overlap (etc.) or because it shifts the power band way out of range?

Is there a max amount of lift we can get on a cam? After that the only thing left to change is lift angle (making the cam lobe flat to increase time at full lift).

When my warrantee runs out I'll have crower grind me some cams. Thanks for the info though, I'll need it when the time comes.

[Moeed]

moeed - i was off getting married :D


Well, congrats to ya, where's the honeymoon?

sorry to threadjack.

[iluvmacs]

oh yeah, congrats. I get married in a month

(honeymoon in jamaica)

[2k2silvermp5]

akhilleus how much is the custom cam going to run you? and how big can we go in both the intake and exhaust cam?

BTW.. I'am waiting on the wanger cams I hear those will be sweet just not sure when they will be produce them and if they will do cam-gears as well.
The WAGNER CAMS WILL BE DONE SOON.

[akhilleus]

Crower charged me $95 for a regrind. However they can only do 15deg more duration and .015" more lift. which is more than the JDM gives

[Subghetto]

The WAGNER CAMS WILL BE DONE SOON.Thanks I'll be saving up for these I hear they are going to be bad ass.

[twilightprotege]

midnightracr, i'm not sure on this, but i heard (could be me just misreading something) that perf's cams are going to be just regrinds....can anyone confirm this???

either way, they probably didnt spend weeks testing the specs. they probably had 3 or 4 specs made up and tested those. could be easily done in a day. they would have just used educated guesses and cam programs to work out what is best. i would REALLY REALLY REALLY like to know if they had the head flow tested to get perfect cam specs with the stock un-ported head!

thanks too to moeed and iluvmacs :D honeymoon is during this week (not now) in the gold coast hinterland (i say gold coast hinterland because most people know the gold coast in queensland, australia)

macs - the reason i said 280 is the max duration at seat (the cam will be more duration, but because we have solid lifters we should only ever talk about valve events not cam events), is like you said - it would move the power band way outta our rev range and the low end would just die in the ass. max amount of lift out engines could sustain (with new valves and valve springs etc) would be about 0.450", but why? 0.350" is enough when the duration is right and you wont have valve float issues with the stock valve springs

[akhilleus]

way to go twilight.... its awesome u got married.... good luck and have fun on the honeymoon, Perf told me that they were billet grounds... at least i think he did. As i said above if he had them reground he wouldnt be able to get too much over stock... although it would explain the price $550 for a set... ouch.. Also i wonder where he got the billet exhaust cam from since u said thta u had to get a billet intake and make it into an exhaust right? hey either way at least there are some options now.

[iluvmacs]

I was just curious. I love the sound of a loping idle, and I really want to shift the torque curve much higher in the revs, so I'm trying to get as much info as i can right now.

I'm not going to get anything soon, since some new cams are supposed to be appearing, and I don't have engine management yet.

[twilightprotege]

well my cams came from the blanks that mazdamotorsports sells (got them through protege5online.com). they were pretty much the limit of what i could grind them out too. and yeah, both intake cams, exhaust just repinned.

for $550, i'd hope they were new cams. i wouldnt be happy if i'd spent that much and still had to buy new shims.

macs, dont worry too much about having to have a new ecu to get power out of cams, yes it will help, but it's not a must have

[SpicyMchaggis]

I'm just waiting for a solid, tested set of cams to match up to some tri-point adjustables..then i'll move forward..