Have you ever degreed your cams?

suprahero

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Have you ever degreed your cams with the engine in the car? I was wanting to make sure that this is possible. Dbsupra and I are planning on doing mine thursday before the Chicago meet. I hate to do it so close to the meet, but he is the only person that I know of that's did this before, and he hasn't done it with the engine still in the car. I was looking for some advice, pointers, tricks of the trade, or maybe even a good luck. Thanks, Jay
 

Zazzn

l33t M0derat0r (On some other forum) n00blet here
Apr 1, 2005
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it's better to go on the dyno and adjust until you stop gaining power... the degree is just a baseline. you could make more by adjusting...
 

IJ.

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Mar 30, 2005
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Always Degree mine to get a known starting point as a reference for future tuning sessions as Eric pointed out.

It's a bitch to get right in the car so I 0 mine on the stand.
 

suprahero

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I'll try to adjust them some more on the dyno and see if I can get any more gain outof it that way. I really don't want to degree them, but I was told that was the best way................:dunno:
 

csnow

Matthew 6:33
Apr 5, 2005
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Jay,

I was going to degree my HKS cams but after speaking with several tuners, they all advised me that the 10-15 hp (liberal estimate) gains that could be achieved with adj gears was not worth the cost involved i.e cam gears and an hour or so of dyno time. Therefore, I sold my gears and I am going to set them at zero. Do like me and put that $300 toward a meth kit which can easily gain you 70 hp and let your 35r come to life at 23 psi :bigthumb:
 

dbsupra90

toonar
Apr 1, 2005
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you guys better help him. i charge $100/hr to work on 1jz's

but seriously, dont confuse tuning the cam gears w/ degreeing them.

i think since they arent degreed to 0 it is causing some overlap and the lower compression.

also, i agree there arent huge peak number gains tuning cams. but you can change the powerband around some.
 

Evilempire1.3JZ-GTE

SF what a waste of supras
Jun 22, 2006
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^^ Thank you that was it!
Very informative video
This thread is going almost no where : (
Anyways the best way to adjust your cams is via computer.
By installing a variable cam on both intake and exhaust and having a computer tune your cams while the engine is running is the best design and peakes your power on all your power band only (1) toyota engine comes factory this way I am not going to bother to preach about the engine because I have one and its off topic.

I believe right now HKS is proto typing a kit than can make any engine with this kit veriable cam! its like 4K for this kit this allows you to tune your engine while its running instead of turning it off then adjusting the cams then repeating this over and over because anytime you gain power in the lower end you loose it in the upper end so the best spot to really set it at is where you gain both bottom and top end and set it there 1 time.
 
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suprahero

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I tried adjusting them again on the dyno and made no progress at all. In fact I ended up just 0 out the exhaust cam. I will have to get them degreed or something else.............:dunno:
 

IJ.

Grumpy Old Man
Mar 30, 2005
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Jay: One step at a time....

Too many and you lose the way, if you're playing Cams turn the AVCR off and get the Cams right remembering to reset Ignition timing at each change.

Once you find the Tq peak for the Cam timing then move onto the next thing you want to adjust.

It helps if you take a legal pad to note each change on.
 

suprahero

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I know we checked my timing and it was at 17degrees btdc. I think that's what he said it was at.

I will go back and try it again and this time I will turn off the AVC-R. Maybe I can get some better numbers. My car dyno'd in February at 446 with 16psi and this past time it only made 427 @ 20psi. I've got to have something thouroughly screwed up. It was cooler two nights ago when I dyno'd than it was in February.
 

dbsupra90

toonar
Apr 1, 2005
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suprahero said:
I know we checked my timing and it was at 17degrees btdc. I think that's what he said it was at.

I will go back and try it again and this time I will turn off the AVC-R. Maybe I can get some better numbers. My car dyno'd in February at 446 with 16psi and this past time it only made 427 @ 20psi. I've got to have something thouroughly screwed up. It was cooler two nights ago when I dyno'd than it was in February.

17* base timing? im no 1j expert, but that is kinda high or no?

oh thought id also mention. sp uses a mustang dyno. so the readings you get at the meet (if you were still going to dyno) will be different than what you have as previous baselines.
 

tissimo

Stock is boring :(
Apr 5, 2005
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jump the daig block.. Timing should be ~ 10*

timing will be around 15* or so at idle with it not jumpered.. so might be around right..