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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Cam timing and affects on the powercurve


Wez

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Hey All,

 

Now I have the HKS264/264 cams installed and mapped my power curve doesnt stop climbing, even at 7200rpm its still rising.

 

I dont really want to rev the engine any further so was wondering if there are any tricks to shift the power over to the left a bit, I have been told that this can be done by advancing the intake cam.

 

What are peoples thoughts on this?

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Cam Timing is something that really needs to be setup on a chassis dyno or an engine dyno to find the perfect setup.

 

To create a faster spooling setup a normal rule of thumb is to advance both cams so that they both open earlier, bringing the power range further down the rpm range but you could loose some top end power. You also might come into problems with compressor surge on a small turbo like a t60-1 if you advance the exhaust cam to much though.

 

With some of the big power mr2's i have mapped i have found that fitting a setup like a 272 intake and a 264 exhaust then leaving the intake along and just advancing the exhaust has made a big difference in spool time while not affecting the power

 

Ryan

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Probably, you don't have to dismantle a lot to dial the cams a bit, do you?

Otherwise you'll never know if you are near the optimal cam settings - to minimise effort I'd dial them a bit more than necessary, and if it feels funny then dial back half way.

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I've found turbo timing to be quite more involved compared to n/a.

Certainly less predictable.

 

Supercharged engines, yes, they are almost like n/a.

 

Turbochargers though create abnormally high exh pressures at high loads, and they don't exactly increase linearly.

Also the turbocharger acts as a loose coupling between intake and exhaust, so whenever you change the timing on one it also affects the timing of the other one (but to a lesser extent)

Dialling the cams to differing degrees also changes overlap and this affects boost leaking straight to the exhaust (in generously sized exh housings) or more often reversion (in tight exh housings, like stock setups)

Sometimes you may find the best results in dialling the cams in the opposite direction (say retard inlet by 10deg and advance exh by 5 deg). This particular exh intervention would fill some of the midrange hole created by the inlet setup (which you'd want to keep because of the frenetic topend)

Or it could be the other way round, hence the need for a dyno, since the 'seat of pants' dyno is often pants.

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I got hold of a single old HKS adjustable pulley a little while ago, (dead cheap) for an experiment i fitted it to my exhaust cam and advanced it by about six degrees, in the hope it would help spool up and help mid range torque, well all i can say is, on the last SRR session i had to abort my run due to det and mapping problem, but at just under 5,000 RPM it made 370BHP but 390 ftlb of torque, so maybe it worked.

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Should it be advanced till the point where I see the power start to drop at the very top?

A bit less than that, but that's why the RR graphs are useful.

The whole power curve changes, so from a point onwards you may find the trade-offs unacceptable. (say if you gain 5bhp on top and lose 10bhp down south)

 

Also be careful with the seat of pants gotcha: If you lose midrange and topend stays the same, the car will feel *more* powerful because of the perceived increase after midrange.

Times will be worse, but the feeling of urgency will mask the pure losses.

A dyno graph would show this, however;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Engine dyno, dead easy, chassis dyno, more difficult unless you KNOW how far you can move the cams and still retain excellent piston / valve clearance. What you need now is for me to build you a decent bottom end... :)

 

And what would be the rough cost of a 'decent' bottom end ;)

 

:D

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