Stock cam vs schneider 292 vs "Rock the Banshee"

[Shelby]

understand one thing in an na engine there is no positive pressure in th intake when the intake valves open,,it a suction at all times , except for a fraction of time against the close'd valve head you will see a slight positive pressure built up because of the inerita weight of the air as the moveing colum is stop'd by the closeing of the valve , at higher rpms this creates a pulse sort of effect

 

as for the amount of air force'd into a cyl , you need to remember the valve duration coincides with piston travel , changeing the cam durration in effect makes the area for air to fill larger

 

we talk about fuel mixtures but we forget about one of the most important things going and thats ign timeing ,

 

parts don't make hp tuneing does or more corectly proper tuneing of parts make more HP , you can take 10 cars same parts in all includeing cams and you can come up with 10 diff HP readings

when you talk about tuneing you have to keep an open mind theres more to it then fuel mix figures

 

thats why Chip will never come up with a exact figure for how much swaping cams help'd or didn't by cam swap alone,,cause you can't just do one thing with a turbo'd engine swaping cams means changeing fuel maps and it's hard to seperate the gain from cam or from fuel map changes , whens the last time you say a 350 chev with a big cam, headers and dual pumper holly WITH an aif/fuel gauge :wink:

[jinx]

there are TONS of threads online where cam-only swaps showed definite & measurable gains on the dyno and backed up with lower ETs.

Many will absolutely max out a particular setup *then* swap the cam.

Same with a turbo. Typically seen on standout efforts.

Very common with DSMs and SR20s

Here is a miata 1.8L example I came accross recently;

http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=243805

Couldn't squeze a single pony more from oe cams. Swapped in an intake cam only, went from 493 to 538whp. Nothing to question

 

Keep in mind there are lotsa garbage grinds out there.

I've experienced it personally... some have on this site too.

Remember EIPquest comments from his extensive cam test/dyno ? ...the torque curve tells the tale. Stock cam was preferred in that case.

Many 'assume' all cams yield performance gains. Far from it.

 

I mentioned (& posted a link iirc) Ivan 240sx crower cam dyno testing session on freshalloy forum. 1st "turbo profile" lost power *everywhere* vs stock. He kept testing/tinkering with his 2.4L setup until he wound up with a heavy street driven 4 cylinder car that manages a 9.2sec 1/4, no spray!

 

As for taking out fuel.... I'd think the 'performance grind' would have more overlap = less vacuum = map sensor telling ecu, more fuel - so I could understand leaning it out.... until the upper revs where you 'should' be moving/ingesting considerably more air.

[chiplee]

going back to the dyno in a week with the roller cam installed now and I can't find my piston stop to degree this cam. anyone have a link to a good one from crane or something. Either that or just what size threads does it need to have?

 

 

edit: never mind, found mine

 

appointment is Monday 24 March at 0900 for this third pull.

Edited March 17, 2008 by chiplee

[Nick7]

:D/ =D>

 

nice man. do u have mpi or tbi? what r u doing for fuel and igntion timing? I had 241tq at 3300 and 225hp at 5800 rpms. I would like to ge them numbers up some. also r u running a bigger intercooler. I have a 19C turbo running 14lbs. of boost. fully built motor with 255 walbro and AFPR at 40psi but stock injectors, tuning with MAFT.. I would like to get my tq to at least 300 and hp to around 250ish or so... Got any suggestions on how to get there.

[chiplee]

nice man. do u have mpi or tbi? what r u doing for fuel and igntion timing? I had 241tq at 3300 and 225hp at 5800 rpms. I would like to ge them numbers up some. also r u running a bigger intercooler. I have a 19C turbo running 14lbs. of boost. fully built motor with 255 walbro and AFPR at 40psi but stock injectors, tuning with MAFT.. I would like to get my tq to at least 300 and hp to around 250ish or so... Got any suggestions on how to get there.

 

yeah I run MPI, so that's what I'm "doing for fuel and ignition" but as for getting to 250/300, I'd suggest opening the exhaust side of your setup first. I'm really not a fan of the stock hot side in our engines. I think it's a bottleneck that causes damage. The intercooler is probably fine to that output level, especially if you cut the pipes off and weld 2 or 2.25 inch pipes on there. That's what I used to make 320/370. My intercooler will get bigger after this cam comparison is done. Alot is changing after this cam comparison is done. I run the same fuel pump as you but with 8an lines and hi flow filters. Boost should sort of be the last thing you add. 20psi on my car has been the boost level I've always ran, but the power has gone up and up as i got the supporting mods I needed in the first place.

[Nick7]

yeah I run MPI, so that's what I'm "doing for fuel and ignition" but as for getting to 250/300, I'd suggest opening the exhaust side of your setup first. I'm really not a fan of the stock hot side in our engines. I think it's a bottleneck that causes damage. The intercooler is probably fine to that output level, especially if you cut the pipes off and weld 2 or 2.25 inch pipes on there. That's what I used to make 320/370. My intercooler will get bigger after this cam comparison is done. Alot is changing after this cam comparison is done. I run the same fuel pump as you but with 8an lines and hi flow filters. Boost should sort of be the last thing you add. 20psi on my car has been the boost level I've always ran, but the power has gone up and up as i got the supporting mods I needed in the first place.

 

hmm. the only problem is that I still have TBI. I have port the exhaust manifold and ported the turbo for quicker spool up. IF u got mpi, then u are a head on me. I want to run 18lbs. but scared to on tbi.

[Technology]

12a at 16psi on my quest with stock cam made 308lbs of torque, and at 20psi, right before fuel cut it was making 315lbs of torque (on a curve that looks like it would have ended at ~340lbs).

 

I changed to a 274H cam with solid rockers and the same setup at 16psi, lost 30 lbs of torque and only gained about 10 horsepower. Weaksauce. Forget about cams till you have MPI and a turbo with a big exhaust side.

Edited March 20, 2008 by Technology

[Nick7]

12a at 16psi on my quest with stock cam made 308lbs of torque, and at 20psi, right before fuel cut it was making 315lbs of torque (on a curve that looks like it would have ended at ~340lbs).

 

I changed to a 274H cam with solid rockers and the same setup at 16psi, lost 30 lbs of torque and only gained about 10 horsepower. Weaksauce. Forget about cams till you have MPI and a turbo with a big exhaust side.

 

Well I already have a 274 cam and it seemed to me that I picked up tq and hp. But ir could be the fidanza fw that I am feeling..

[chiplee]

12a at 16psi on my quest with stock cam made 308lbs of torque, and at 20psi, right before fuel cut it was making 315lbs of torque (on a curve that looks like it would have ended at ~340lbs).

 

I changed to a 274H cam with solid rockers and the same setup at 16psi, lost 30 lbs of torque and only gained about 10 horsepower. Weaksauce. Forget about cams till you have MPI and a turbo with a big exhaust side.

 

 

yeah I have to agree with this. boost and cams are like the last things to go "up" on. Unless you're just itchin' to learn how to rebuild it. There are no secrets really. Check the setups of the 300whp+ list and look for consistencies. They'll all usually have a better header and better turbo hot side than stock. Guys with better turbo cold sides only, don't get to 300hp and guys with TBI rarely get there too. The TBI is horribly flawed for anything over stock output. You will starve cylinders and pay in the long run, or perhaps sooner. Spend money on monitoring equipment, fuel system upgrades and opening the header and turbo exhaust housing up and you'll do alot less rebuilding. Wish someone would have told me that 6 rebuilds ago.

Edited March 20, 2008 by chiplee

[Laodicea]

I have been following this since last fall. See my mods in my sig? I just dyno'd last week and got 231hp and 250 torque @18psi....so we have similar setups and I am way behind for some reason. Glad to see you have so much power hopefully mine will rise to. You still using the 20g? Seems like I read a thread of yours before saying you had a t70...but could be someone else.

 

What is your timing like...I think my timing or retard may not be properly set.

[roketa]

The fuel agrument can go on forever. The cam will use a different amount of fuel. More or Less?

 

How about boost? More or Less?

 

How about timing? More or Less?

 

What I am trying to say is that everything here from ambient air temp, barametric psi., octane, age of engine, compression, etc will have to be taken into consideration. There is no one set answer. The pulse time can be shorten, but what about the amount of fuel. More air more fuel. Is there one correct answer?

 

NO. The car needs to have a cam gear. Then you need a piggy back computer. Then you need real testing gauges, not your blue jeans. A broad ban AFM, a real boost gauge adjusted for barametric psi, so need to be able to control timing, duty cycle, amount of fuel, etc. Few piggy back are set up for this. You also need a piggy back that is set up to tune a TBI. As you might need extra injectors the piggy back has to be able to control all of that. AS you can see this is not simple change the cam and go process.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one thing that will ruin your engine very quickly. It is a parameter that is used in conjuction with all of the ones above. Some say it is what determines if everything else is right. If everything else is correct you can run boost, you can advance your timing, you can do anything you want. You get this reading wrong and you are in big trouble. This parameter is the EGT. It tells you were you are.

 

So, if your piggy back system cannot incorperate all of the above and then add additional such as MAP, it is not really tuning. A good piggy back will even adjust your electronic boost. You are playing with different individual parameters. Think of it as guitar. All 6 strings must be properly tuned in order for it to sound right. On a piano it is 88 keyes. Are you seeing the picture.

 

So we could argue all day and night. Tuning is not a mystery. You have to have the right tools. Everycar, every cam, is slightly different. If you do not do it right, you are fooling yourselves. Oh yeah the dyno can tell you you are great. But are you driving a hand grenade? By retarding a few more degrees and opening the duty cycle, or controlling the AFM with the correct EGT maybe you could get that additional horse power. Or how about a set up for torque at a particular RPM range? Can't be done? Ask the guys that tune race cars everyday. They fine-tune them for each track depending on the layout.

 

Think about it.

 

Good night.

[chiplee]

I have been following this since last fall. See my mods in my sig? I just dyno'd last week and got 231hp and 250 torque @18psi....so we have similar setups and I am way behind for some reason. Glad to see you have so much power hopefully mine will rise to. You still using the 20g? Seems like I read a thread of yours before saying you had a t70...but could be someone else.

 

What is your timing like...I think my timing or retard may not be properly set.

 

still using the 20g, not sure who that was with the T70. If I go to a garret it'll be a GT35R. Looking at your mods the only thing I can't gather from it is what is the hot side of your turbo and what header do you have?

[chiplee]

The fuel agrument can go on forever. The cam will use a different amount of fuel. More or Less?

 

How about boost? More or Less?

 

How about timing? More or Less?

 

What I am trying to say is that everything here from ambient air temp, barametric psi., octane, age of engine, compression, etc will have to be taken into consideration. There is no one set answer. The pulse time can be shorten, but what about the amount of fuel. More air more fuel. Is there one correct answer?

 

NO. The car needs to have a cam gear. Then you need a piggy back computer. Then you need real testing gauges, not your blue jeans. A broad ban AFM, a real boost gauge adjusted for barametric psi, so need to be able to control timing, duty cycle, amount of fuel, etc. Few piggy back are set up for this. You also need a piggy back that is set up to tune a TBI. As you might need extra injectors the piggy back has to be able to control all of that. AS you can see this is not simple change the cam and go process.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one thing that will ruin your engine very quickly. It is a parameter that is used in conjuction with all of the ones above. Some say it is what determines if everything else is right. If everything else is correct you can run boost, you can advance your timing, you can do anything you want. You get this reading wrong and you are in big trouble. This parameter is the EGT. It tells you were you are.

 

So, if your piggy back system cannot incorperate all of the above and then add additional such as MAP, it is not really tuning. A good piggy back will even adjust your electronic boost. You are playing with different individual parameters. Think of it as guitar. All 6 strings must be properly tuned in order for it to sound right. On a piano it is 88 keyes. Are you seeing the picture.

 

So we could argue all day and night. Tuning is not a mystery. You have to have the right tools. Everycar, every cam, is slightly different. If you do not do it right, you are fooling yourselves. Oh yeah the dyno can tell you you are great. But are you driving a hand grenade? By retarding a few more degrees and opening the duty cycle, or controlling the AFM with the correct EGT maybe you could get that additional horse power. Or how about a set up for torque at a particular RPM range? Can't be done? Ask the guys that tune race cars everyday. They fine-tune them for each track depending on the layout.

 

Think about it.

 

Good night.

 

It might be good to quote the person you're talking to, since you said TBI, I'll assume it's not me.

[Laodicea]

still using the 20g, not sure who that was with the T70. If I go to a garret it'll be a GT35R. Looking at your mods the only thing I can't gather from it is what is the hot side of your turbo and what header do you have?

 

it is the stock exhaust housing. :hangman: ...I am using Propose101 SS header from GP.

[chiplee]

it is the stock exhaust housing. :hangman: ...I am using Propose101 SS header from GP.

 

yeah well, I mean, there you go. I don't know what the propose header is capable of but I'm sure it's better than stock so you have a bottle neck at the exhaust housing on your turbo. I drove around like this for years on a TD05 (no H) 20g wondering why I never made more than 260hp at 20psi. I wish CNM would have never existed because James was a cancer in this community, selling mismatched turbos and getting pumped up by all the regulars around the starion world. The 05 housing HAS NO BUSINESS on this engine for anyone who wants to break 250hp and 250 is a stretch. Again, my car has gone from its first dyno pull ever of 255 hp at 20psi to its most recent of 320hp at 20psi, all on the literal exact same compressor housing at the exact same boost with the exact same intercooler and pipes. where do you think all that pressure was going back when it made 255hp instead of 320? Backpressure for some of it, guaranteed, the rest of it probably translated into smokin hot exhaust temps and contributed to the fact that I've rebuild the engine 5 times in the span of 8 years. Get the exhaust opened up. The TDO6/18G will rock. Mine's a TDO6H/20g, and ROCKS. The kicker is you really have to get a sy/ty housing. Your 8cm^2 housing isn't like the sy/ty 8cm^2 housing. You probably already knew all that, but I gotta' be candid with you and say that you wouldn't know you knew it by the mods you have. You are WAY ahead of yourself on those mods because the first thing you did should have been to get a properly matched turbo, if you meant to make power. In my mind, you don't even really have an 18g. Look what Kronus's car did on an 18g. I'd be very surprised to find out he had a stock exhaust housing but even if he did, he also had guys tuning his car that do ALOT of it. Us shadetree types need to stack the deck in our favor vice hoping for the best on questionable stuff.

[Laodicea]

Thanks Chip this has been the Best answer/confirmation of what my thoughts were. I felt like it was choking out..especially at 5700rpm felt like a rev limiter....My buddy gave a a 3" ehaust yesterday and I will order the larger turbo I have been stalling on getting. Edited March 20, 2008 by Laodicea

[chiplee]

Well there's good news and bad news.

 

The good news is my engine stayed together on the dyno, purrs like a kitten in fact.

 

 

The bad news is, configured as close as I could get it to the way the other two cams were configured, this cam made 268HP/316TQ. I want to immediately throw out the qualifier that the other two cams seemed to perform best at 13:1 or so, and i never got a 13:1 pull in on this cam. I'll go through the old graphs and find 12:1 pulls from those other cams that we can compare to this cam at 12:1 which will be more appropriate comparisons.

 

I also think the water/meth killed my wideband O2 sensor. I just replaced the sensor but it was reading 14:1 all day, almost no matter what we did and my ECU references the wideband for its narrow band signal so that could have been effecting power slightly also.

 

I'm in a hurry right now but I'll post the graphs when I can. I'm a little confused, again because it feels super fast, but there are alot of other factors I want to get into. Even when I started spraying the water/meth mix, added timing and turned the boost to 22psi, it still only made 291hp and 338tq

 

 

power peaked at around 4750rpm all day no matter what I did, and tq peaked right at 4400 all day and is dropping off by 5500 but no sharp drop to speak of all the way out to 6k. Tq also came on later than before by about 750rpm, which we would have expected with this cam. It could be that this cam feels faster to me because the torque happening higher in the RPM band and pulling slightly longer for a broader range.

[chiplee]

Oh and the only other interesting thing was that the guy had a run file on the computer labeled with my car and my name where he had gotten out of the gas at 4800rpm because it went lean. This was from my last visit and I don't think we even looked at the computer since he let off, but it made 327hp and 384tq on that one. Loves to be lean.

[PDX87Starion]

Chip, was this just the "comparison" dyno? Are you going back to dial in and tune to the cam?

If after all the tunning and the 292 nets more are you going to switch back?

 

Also about your o2 sensor. I was at a local dyno yesterday (Rrev motorsports) they had one of there shop cars on the dyno, a mustang

with a mega huge turbo running 8:1 compression and puts down 750 hp @ 14 psi, and they plan to run up to about 30 psi (with race fuel).

They run E85 in it (@14psi) and I asked them if the e85 or alcohol effects there o2 sensors. They said that its actually

better for them and that the race fuel is what kills their o2 sensors. I think methanol is a little more corrosive than ethanol but not by much.

 

Anyways I think your back to back comparisons is really good info.

Keep up the good work. :thumbsup:

[chiplee]

Chip, was this just the "comparison" dyno? Are you going back to dial in and tune to the cam?

If after all the tunning and the 292 nets more are you going to switch back?

 

Also about your o2 sensor. I was at a local dyno yesterday (Rrev motorsports) they had one of there shop cars on the dyno, a mustang

with a mega huge turbo running 8:1 compression and puts down 750 hp @ 14 psi, and they plan to run up to about 30 psi (with race fuel).

They run E85 in it (@14psi) and I asked them if the e85 or alcohol effects there o2 sensors. They said that its actually

better for them and that the race fuel is what kills their o2 sensors. I think methanol is a little more corrosive than ethanol but not by much.

 

Anyways I think your back to back comparisons is really good info.

Keep up the good work. :thumbsup:

 

 

I can't decide what to do. I love the roller for the way it idles and it really seemed to help cold starts in my car. But I did tune to it while I was there. I spent an hour messing with it and I already had a pretty good map to start with. I added timing and boost, which I had not ever done with the 292 and the roller still peaked well below the 292. I added +2 degrees of timing to the entire map and the entire graph went up from the previous pull. I added 2psi boost to 22 and the entire graph again went up from the previous pull. But the roller maxed out at 22PSI with 25degrees final timing, up from 22.5 total that the 292 had been tested at, and still only made 298hp and 340TQ This was with the water meth spraying. The comparison pull was not. I'm still sorting through all the maps so I can post the three closest ones. If I can find three that are very similar in AFR graphs they will have to be the best comparison of the three cams. If the boost is the same and the resultant AFR is the same, then that's as close as we're going to get to a reasonable comparison of the three cams. It won't ever be anywhere near perfect, but that's my opinion of the best way to get it close. If anyone has another idea let me know. I have all the data I plan to gather about these cams. I'm ready to change some other things now.

[emagdnim]

Hell at least someone on here is doing testing on a quest and posting it.

 

Thanks!

[chiplee]

Hell at least someone on here is doing testing on a quest and posting it.

 

Thanks!

 

you're very welcome. sorry it took so long but my schedule sometimes sucks.

 

I think the problem is that this roller is a Horsepower cam. If it were phased perfectly I think it might be more likely to keep the torque up above 300lbs, well above 6000rpm which would result in a big HP number. Seeing as how I'm planning to re-gear, I think it's worth it to phase this cam very carefully, perhaps even degree it for HP, and go back. It's always better to make more HP than TQ so you can take advantage of gearing and as much as I hate 1st gear already, 3.90s are probably not going to make my day. I'll want to start out in 2nd gear.

 

I don't see any good reason the 292 couldn't also be "phased" for HP too though so I have to remain candid about my "findings" and suggest that preliminarily, the 292 would appear to be the best cam tested so far. There are so many factors though, and I'll try to do a little write up about the pros and cons of each from my experience of the last $650 worth of dyno time and about a 1000 miles of driving total between the 3 cams. I honestly love the roller for driving the car, miss the numbers the 292 netted, and am amazed at the numbers the stocker put down.

Edited March 25, 2008 by chiplee

[PDX87Starion]

Wow. I just looked at the first page and the cant believe the stock cam made 298hp/380ftlbs.

 

I cant help but wonder what the stock cam would do with it retarded a bit to move the power band up and HP up a liitle.

 

Or perhaps the other cams would net more being a little advanced, since your not reving it past 6000 much?

 

In your write up if you could include the cam specs that would be great.

[chiplee]

Ok, I'll go ahead and post the three I think provide the best comparison.

 

I'm not comparing each cam's max output. I'm comparing the three runs with the most similar a/f ratio. Wish I was a better tuner so the a/f was more constant but oh well. A 1 point jump, from 12.5 to 13.5:1 yielded almost a 14hp gain on the 292, but I didn't do a run at 13.5:1 on the roller so that wouldn't be a fair comparison in my opinion.

 

The stock cam was degreed before the first run and then cam timing was not touched again. In a perfect world I would have preferred to put each cam at its manufacturer's recommended phasing. I was unable to fit that in.

 

The graphs are all set to SAE correction factor and zero smoothing, except the 292, looking for the file to change it in winpep. All runs were done between 40 and 50 degrees at sea level. No mechanical change other than the cam was made between runs. The roller cam, obviously got roller rockers to go with it. Software changes were required to get each cam in the ballpark on air/fuel ratio. The flaws in the comparison are obvious and there were some variables that simply could not be removed from the equation. Hopefully there'll still be some value to the information though.

 

Stock cam at 20psi 290hp/370tq

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc82/chipleeiii/stockat20psi.jpg

 

Schneider 292 mechanical cam 312hp/350tq Run 007 appears to have the afr curve closest to the other two.

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc82/chipleeiii/fowler.jpg

 

Tim C's Monsta Banshee roller cam 269hp/316tq Run 009 appears to have the afr curve closest to the other two.

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc82/chipleeiii/banshee20psi.jpg

Edited March 26, 2008 by chiplee

[jolyrgr]

The question that I have is where do these runs fall in the potential range for each cam? I would have to say that I would be dissappointed to have put all the extra work/expense into the roller setup, to be outdone by the 292. Any thoughts?