Gude Performance Cams
#11
12-08-2012, 08:38 AM
Cams are funny beasties, they like carburetors do not subscribe to More's Law. What is More's Law? If a little is good, more is better.
On any given motor or engine, you can easily over carburate or over cam. And doing so will pretty much negate the performance of your engine.
Driving a cooking version of a stock engine is not only fun to build but is fun to drive.
But junk yards are full of cars that were put together with no concept as to what these parts actually do and they turned out to be horribly disappointing. I currently own two cars that have a cooking version of an engine.
For their size, they develop a fair amount of usable horsepower matched to a drive train to take advantage of it. One is a 425hp 390 cu in engine with an estmated 425 hp and a 5 speed conversion. The second is a fuel injected inline 6 cylinder car with a tricked automatic. It develops about 145 hp which is o.k for it's size. Both will pass a smog test and both are fast. Of course one is faster than the other.
I am building a third, one that I am hoping will have about 425 hp and will use a 4 speed automatic with a .75 overdrive and a 2200rpm stall torque converter.
It too is a V8 and is a Mercury Marine motor purchased from a boat of about 350 cu in's.
The cams are all Iskenderian. A manufacturer I prefer. You need to be some what knowledgeable about cams you choose. You can have too much lift, too much duration or not enough.
Those Gude Performance cams for the Saturn engine are the first I have seen advertised in recent years that were available for that car. Specifications given are minimal and I do not know what the stock specifications are. Until I do I am not willing to commit to the expense and the work involved to install them until I can justifiably figure out that they are worth installing. If in my opinion they are I have no problem in going through the expense and work to do so if I can reasonably assume in my case that another 15hp is a reasonable expectation.
And like you, in my opinon the other modifications you describe some of which are only cost effective IF you are rebuilding your engine in the first place and others? The benefits exist but you are splitting hairs to realize them. Port and Polish benefit high rpm and valve operation.
In general doing that to a stock type head usually does little more on a driver than serve as a basis for bragging rights.
Most Detroit engines are under-somethinged for the purpose of enhancing manufacturing costs.
Today's full blown electronic managed engines are quite a step upwards in many area's. One of which is overall reliability. They rarely have performance or maintenance problems. But when the do are extremely pricy to repair.
At one point in time 1hpcubic inch was considered state of art. It is not uncommon now to see 2hp per cupic inch come out of the factory on an affordable economy car. And a Camero or Mustang can be purchased from the factory with a warranty with 5 hp per cu inch a number that a few years back was un-achievable.
AND achieve econmy car fuel mileage and reliability.
Using as much of todays technology that I can afford I have managed to gain over 100 hp AND get 20 mpg on a car that at best when new was a 10mpg car. On my latest project again a mix of yesterday and todays technology I expect to see 425 hp and easily 20 mpg on a daily driver.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1&l=827fe42953
On any given motor or engine, you can easily over carburate or over cam. And doing so will pretty much negate the performance of your engine.
Driving a cooking version of a stock engine is not only fun to build but is fun to drive.
But junk yards are full of cars that were put together with no concept as to what these parts actually do and they turned out to be horribly disappointing. I currently own two cars that have a cooking version of an engine.
For their size, they develop a fair amount of usable horsepower matched to a drive train to take advantage of it. One is a 425hp 390 cu in engine with an estmated 425 hp and a 5 speed conversion. The second is a fuel injected inline 6 cylinder car with a tricked automatic. It develops about 145 hp which is o.k for it's size. Both will pass a smog test and both are fast. Of course one is faster than the other.
I am building a third, one that I am hoping will have about 425 hp and will use a 4 speed automatic with a .75 overdrive and a 2200rpm stall torque converter.
It too is a V8 and is a Mercury Marine motor purchased from a boat of about 350 cu in's.
The cams are all Iskenderian. A manufacturer I prefer. You need to be some what knowledgeable about cams you choose. You can have too much lift, too much duration or not enough.
Those Gude Performance cams for the Saturn engine are the first I have seen advertised in recent years that were available for that car. Specifications given are minimal and I do not know what the stock specifications are. Until I do I am not willing to commit to the expense and the work involved to install them until I can justifiably figure out that they are worth installing. If in my opinion they are I have no problem in going through the expense and work to do so if I can reasonably assume in my case that another 15hp is a reasonable expectation.
And like you, in my opinon the other modifications you describe some of which are only cost effective IF you are rebuilding your engine in the first place and others? The benefits exist but you are splitting hairs to realize them. Port and Polish benefit high rpm and valve operation.
In general doing that to a stock type head usually does little more on a driver than serve as a basis for bragging rights.
Most Detroit engines are under-somethinged for the purpose of enhancing manufacturing costs.
Today's full blown electronic managed engines are quite a step upwards in many area's. One of which is overall reliability. They rarely have performance or maintenance problems. But when the do are extremely pricy to repair.
At one point in time 1hpcubic inch was considered state of art. It is not uncommon now to see 2hp per cupic inch come out of the factory on an affordable economy car. And a Camero or Mustang can be purchased from the factory with a warranty with 5 hp per cu inch a number that a few years back was un-achievable.
AND achieve econmy car fuel mileage and reliability.
Using as much of todays technology that I can afford I have managed to gain over 100 hp AND get 20 mpg on a car that at best when new was a 10mpg car. On my latest project again a mix of yesterday and todays technology I expect to see 425 hp and easily 20 mpg on a daily driver.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1&l=827fe42953
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