Performance Camshafts?

[ozconnection]

with two different guys having new cams and wanting to sell them, i have to ask why did you change your mind about installing them? too much trouble, or what? i looked at adding headers to mine, and was told that if i didn't change the cam, that the headers alone wouldn't do much. still learning here and i had to ask.

I think that, in most cases, the standard exhaust system is usually pretty, well, standard! Press bends on the smallish diameter pipes with very ordinary flowing mufflers and exhaust manifolds means that it isn't very hard to improve on this as far as performance is concerned. Anyone who says that you need a cam change before an upgraded exhaust is fitted has rocks in their heads! There is no point improving the breathing capacity of the engine via a larger camshaft until the exhaust can flow adequately! Get the exhaust first, then the cam.

[WingZr0]

This thread is hitting on some good ideas

I was at Les Scwab Tires getting my new 215/60/14's mounted and Roy,

who was putting them on,

hipped me to Nakatsu's Garage when telling him I was off to the tranny shop next.

He suggested Nakatsu would be better than the $700 qouted by ATCO and that

he works on Z's specifically.

Nakatsu is the owner and "Cheif Wrench" and has been working on Domestic and

Imports for 15+ years and owned a few Z's like the 260Z.

I figured he knew his stuff cause he thought my '77 was a

'76 from the hood vents.

His shop really specializes in race and custom stuff.

They do everything from paint to engine and body work.

There was a '64 El Camino gutted and getting the shaved body treatment

when I walked in .

LSS (Long Story Short) after shooting the breez with him and his experince

over an hour, I'm leaning towards a MSA Cam Upgrade Kit for $549 instead of just

the valve adjustment I need.

I like the MSA 10-2004 cam .495 Lift / 290 Duration.

Rough Idle. Mid range and top end power cam.

More similar to whats been discussed, and problely more reasonable,

is 10-2003 .460 Lift 270/280 Duratrion

Pulls hard from 3,000 to 6,000 RPM.

I really like the "COMPETITION ONLY" .620/.624 Lift

304/318 Duration cam though :laugh::laugh::tapemouth

Power from 4500 to 8500 RPM.

Of course with 6 into 2 header and maybe 2.5 inch diameter down pipes.

~Z~

[sblake01]

I figured he knew his stuff cause he thought my '77 was a

'76 from the hood vents.

??????Only 77 and 78 came from the factory with hood vents.

I like the MSA 10-2004 cam .495 Lift / 290 Duration.

Rough Idle. Mid range and top end power cam.

More similar to whats been discussed, and problely more reasonable,

is 10-2003 .460 Lift 270/280 Duratrion

Pulls hard from 3,000 to 6,000 RPM.

I really like the "COMPETITION ONLY" .620/.624 Lift

304/318 Duration cam though

Power from 4500 to 8500 RPM.

You'd have to do a lot of other work to your car to get anything out of either of those. Stock EFI doesn't work at all well with high performance cams.

[WingZr0]

??????Only 77 and 78 came from the factory with hood vents..

You'd have to do a lot of other work to your car to get anything out of either of those. Stock EFI doesn't work at all well with high performance cams.

I'll stick with original plan getting her running right and hunker down till

spring but thats more than what I knew.

Always seen the vents on all S30's, most likely hood replacements

can explain that occurance :bandit:

They was along with you on the stock EFI not good though.

The body guy has a 240Z and was telling me to go with Triplle webbers for

real performance :tapemouth

240 and 260Z's are great for cams but with 280Z's we're taliking

Fuel Pump Flow Rate, Dizzy and Injector Size upgrades are we?

~Z~

[WingZr0]

I see on the Z store the full valve setup for a set price, doesn't matter which cam you buy its all the same price. I am tempted to get a Stage 6 cam (although it'll be a street car and maybe an eventual race car) but I can't justify 6k-8k RPM on the road. But if I go into vintage SCCA racing with the Z and bail out on my BMW 2002 I'd feel like a fool to buy a whole new valve setup jsut for a a crazier cam... I want my car to be as race ready as a road car can get (minus the exception for dirty playing on the exhaust and going straight pipes no muffler (probably a bad idea)). My reason behind this is the Corinthian Vintage Racing club wants their cars to be period correct and original. This makes it manageable for a teenager like me so I don't have to get into some major stuff like a big fancy gear box; they wouldn't allow because it wasn't made in '72, we can only run the 4 speeds or if you find the rare BRE 5 speed. Thats ok though, from what I've seen, the one Z at the track only had triple Mikuni's, headers, MSD, and probably higher comp. for race fuel and kept up with the deep pockets of the Porsche owners which had the 5 speed. And the Z guy was even running the wrong gearing for the track, and stock cam. :0 Sexy!

Whats wrong with pulling 6-8K ?

I believe this gives some of us hope for taking on the "Deep Pockets".

See RED Dog, you don't need a high paying job to get those Porsche Bums

but with cams what do you guys prefer, Low end torgue or Top end power?

[sblake01]

I said only the 77 and 78 came from the factory with hood vents. Meaning that the statement "I figured he knew his stuff cause he thought my '77 was a '76 from the hood vents" doesn't give me the impression that he "knew his stuff". True that the late hood fits the earlier cars and many people have done that. To run a big cam with early EFI you'll need the things you mention plus a larger throttle body but you'll still lack any kind of tunability with that stock ECU. You'd really need to go to some kind of stand alone like Megasquirt to make it work. Tripple Webers might be the way to go for that type of performance but you'll also need head work, more compression etc. Either way it will cost money. You can't just slap that cam in and call it all good. Where you want the power, top end or low end, depends on what you want the car to be able to do.

[josh817]

I'll give you guys some pictures. We originally went to the track to see the BMW 2002 guys. The big head honcho guy for the BMW group (he has all the fancy expensive parts) was there. He bragged about how he had the lightest BMW out of all of them etc. We watched him and he made like... 3rd to last. Yes ok, so he won't be competing with the Super 7's and the Porsches but the only thing he was struggling for a position for was the Cortina and the 2 Fiat's... Oh those Fiat's... Well I was like WTF because everyones first year on the track will be a learning sucky year. Ok well I'm a junior in highschool, I leave for college in a year AND Dad wants the BMW to be street legal and track legal. Now I'm going to have a heavy car with a somewhat restricted motor, and I'll be new. So that racing experience that we were hoping to bring back after my 8 year old karting days has gone poof, because in last place, there won't be any other slower groups behind you...

Ok so thats that rant, I went over to the Z guy and I really liked how he had his car. I want something like it for mine even though its for the street because I recognize the fact that a Z isn't so convenient... Might as well strip it out and make it cool. I talked with him and he told me all the stuff, at the end of the race he was 4th, and the people who beat him were 2 Porsche's who had AMAZING setups and they RAPED everything, and a Super 7 who was up there fighting with the Porsche's. So it was the 3 of them, a huge gap, and then the Z, a decent gap, and the rest of the pack. He admitted that those Porsche's spend so much money he had to draw the line somewhere because its only club racing, don't take out another mortgage for it...

Have some pics:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/josh817/Racing/HPIM1766.jpg

The inside.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/josh817/Racing/HPIM1763.jpg

Its nice.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/josh817/Racing/HPIM1743.jpg

One of the very deep pocket Porsche guys, no wonder he couldn't keep up.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/josh817/Racing/HPIM1740.jpg

And the BMW guy with my dad...

I have some video but it was very windy (enough to knock you down) so you can't hear the noises. :/

Anyways you don't see the problem with 6k-8k on the street?

[sblake01]

WingZro is basically talking about running some type of semi-race setup in a street car. Sounds good on paper but it really doesn't work. Especially in California where you have to smog check every other year. Been there, done that. Be careful puting the wrong combination of high performance stuff in a car you're basically using as a daily driver. Even if you get it right, and that's always subject to interpretation, it makes the car somewhat difficult to drive, kills the fuel mileage, etc. Other components in the car also have to be changed to withstand/enhance this extra performance. I got tired of tweaking and breaking stuff. No more high performance builds for me unless it's a race car.

[jmortensen]

Josh, it sounds like you're all fired up to build a motor and that's a good thing. Before you start though, I suggest you buy the How to Modify Your Nissan/Datsun OHC Engine book by Honsowetz and read it. You should also do some reading here, at hybridz.org and anywhere else you can find good reliable info.

Some things you should note:

1. As stated, the stock FI can't deal with big cams. If you're running stock FI, don't bother with a cam swap.

2. If you get lift over about .490, you run into several problems. Coil bind in the valve springs is one, the other is the valve spring retainer will hit the valve stem seal. You can't just bolt it on and go.

3. There are fairly easy fixes to #2. Search here or hybridz.org and you'll find different valve stem seals that fit right in, and aftermarket valve springs will cure the coil bind issues.

4. A stage 6 cam will cause valvetrain wear very quickly. An engine built with a cam that big has a lifetime measured in hours, but this is also partly because you'd need forged pistons and a MUCH higher compression ratio to take advantage of that cam.

5. The first 3 stages of the MSA cams are meant to work with the FI. They're all very small. The 4th one is what I would call a medium cam. I used something very similar on my street/track car. It worked well, but I would have gone with something more in the .500/300 range in retrospect.

6. There is some question as to the quality of the metallurgy in the MSA cams.

Basically what I'm saying is don't run out and get the biggest cam you can find and throw it in your otherwise stock engine and expect miraculously improved performance. The induction, head, cam, and compression ratio all have to work together to make power. Improving any one of those components without paying attention to the rest MAY make a power improvement, but it certainly wouldn't come anywhere close to building something with all of those parameters combined.

The CP class eventually turned into GT2. The early Z roadracing championships came in CP and those cars are pretty developed. To say that the CP car that you took pictures of was running a stock cam serious strains credibility. If the guy told you that it was a stock cam he was either messing with you, had just swapped in a stock engine after blowing up his real motor, or he was very stupid for giving up the potential hp he could have had.

[josh817]

Well its only club racing. Most of us in the club don't have huge pockets and becaues of rule limitations you can't go way overboard without losing points. My dad made it clear to everyone he talked to that if you want to win the championship, you're going to go by the rules. His basic rule is win what you can afford. When he did his Spitfire racing he ran double SU's, why? Because going over to double Weber's would put him in Group 1 A rather than Group 1 B. The difference in those is that Group 1 had a $45k car and Group 2 had $15k cars. If you can't afford to race with the wealthy and actually place and have fun, then go to something where you can. What you're thinking is that they come back from a race and check out all this data and do engine tear downs and stuff. No, the most anyone has done was do quick fixes, there isn't that much time, and there isn't enough room within the rules to get into comprehensive equipment. When Dad raced he'd come in and just sit in his chair because he followed by the rules. All the other dudes who had mod'd like no other Spitfires were rushing around taking stuff apart. Dad was placing 2nd and the 1st place guy was running smaller slicks, against the rules, so in the long run Dad won the championship because of points that he wasn't deducted from. The gap is even bigger now. I hear that there are some dudes that are placing 2nd to last but they are constantly winning in points. With that said, I took the pictures before he went out on the track. The gap between him and the 3 guys ahead of him was like half a lap and that was a 2.8 mile track I think. And like I said before with the budget thing. He's a doctor but everyone has their prioirities. When I was talking with him he mentioned how, yah he got raped by the 2 Porsche's but they had so much money tied up in their cars it wasn't even funny. He didn't even want to bother spending enough to be up there with them and I bet they were having point deductions left and right. You can tell just by listening to them because the 2 Porsche's up front sound almost like F! cars and all the others sound like a 70's Porsche. The rules are very strict and when we're building the BMW we're trying to keep up with them because it really does come down to stupid stuff like having the standard dashboard, tires can only be 1 1/2 inch bigger than stock for that year etc.

Thanks for the info on the cams. Thats one area I'm really lacking in and its a very important area. I was thinking the same thing about compression because 93 octane only goes to what? 10:1? Plus I'm going with the l24 in case if I want to switch it over into the club and I have Weber DGV's but I don't see why someone would pay the $800 for the setup when triples are around that price. I didn't even bother to think of engine life but yah a race cam for a race motor and race motors should be torn down every weekend. Also I don't know if vacuum will become a problem. If so than anything with vacuum has to go too I guess. That coil bing thing, I'd guess that it would be fixed by the valve setup it comes with. The site is Z Store I think and their package deal is with the performance valve kit with the springs, lash pads, rocker arms, etc. And as for what Sblake01 was saying, I'm 17 I could care less about fuel mileage, and driveability (unless it stalls out at frequent visits like a stop sign). After coming from this massive wiring mess of an l28 with a huge turbo on it, I am use to the thrown back in the seat and the arse of the car going all over the place. Its fun but oh so wrong. x_X Dad got into my Z with only 8psi, floored it to 4th gear (5th is for cruising) and when he got back he just shook his head and said "Why did I let you buy this, I went wrong in so many places.." Plus I hate turbo lag.

That wraps up my huge quick reply, have some videos of the track, poor quality but you'll see what I'm talking about:

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/josh817/Racing/?action=view&current=HPIM1752.flv

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/josh817/Racing/?action=view&current=HPIM1753.flv

You can hear my dad saying "Terry isn't doing well at all" No kidding, got me all pumped up about the BMW and we see that. >_> I know you can't tell who is who but the one that sounds different than everyone else is one of the Porsche's. Here's a picture of how obviously out of the budget those dudes are:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/josh817/Racing/HPIM1742.jpg

See the tires laying there... Must be a big bill to get more tires... >_> I shouldn't be putting them down though, if you have the money, why not.

The Clubs Datsuns:

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5742/215eix7.jpg

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7406/9c75ks2.jpg

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5882/899fvg8.jpg

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/3023/19bcvp0.jpg

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/2889/983fqn6.jpg

The track I was at that day:

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/2773/64d0jpggr4xmehbfjklq8.jpg

[jmortensen]

I'm on a mailing list for club racers, most of them race some form of CP, either CP3 or CP3M. I'll stick by my previous statement about the stock cam. Don't know any club racer aside from an ITS car that uses a stock cam.

A GT2 engine would be about right for the CP class. You might try to find a complete used engine. I know www.wolfcreekracing.com was selling a couple different engines for about $5k each, which is quite a bit cheaper than you can build them. They'll probably require 105 octane fuel, but they will make enough power so that you can be reasonably competitive, probably keep up with the red car...

[m4xwellmurd3r]

so, i've been looking into doing a cam swap on my '78 when i rebuild the engine (basically stock, with a bit of head work, 6-1 headers and an msa exhaust system) and i was reading up on a site listed earlier and read this

Unlike V8s, you really don't need a radical cam to wake up a Z motor. So I resisted the temptation to go with their stage 2 cam the "# 91" which has 238/238@.050 duration. I was worried it would lose too much bottom end torque on the street. So after some discussion, I decided instead to order their "# 94a" grind which has .430 lift, 230/230@.050" duration which they said uses stock base circles(!) It has an advertised duration of 248 which may look low, but it's the true 230 duration at @.050" duration that really matters.

think it might be an ok cam for a stock l28? that is, stock efi and everything. i could of course modify a few things like the afm and such, i'm not lookin for much, just somethin to give it a bit more pep than it has haha.

oh, btw the cam is from Web Cam Inc.