Im assuming this is probably dangerous to do, but thought I would ask anyway. I have a stock ls with a gsr tranny and I/H/E, looking for some FREE power cause the car cant get out of its own way and moneys tight. A friend of mine told me I could play around with timing to get some gains, but I dont have adjustable cam gears so I would have to do it by TEETH which definately sounds like a bad idea to me, but wanted to see if anybody has tried this with positive results. I found a thread explaining what various combinations of "retarding this advancing that" would do to a turboed engine, but since im not turboed I dont know any of these would respond the same way but anyway here it is. BTW my pistons are stock ls pistons, so P2V clearence isnt a huge concern.



Advance both cams-more low end


Retard both cams- More top end, less bottom end


Advance intake cam- more mid range and maybe less top end, rougher idle and perhaps a little loss right off idle


Retard exhaust cam- engine usualy not to senstive to this, same affect as the latter but to less of a degree. Sometimes useful for matching cam to header and can sometimes see good gains, not usualy though, sometimes a little more top end


Advance exhaust cam- NA engines usualy not too senstive to this except cam matching to header. Idles smoother, sometimes a little more bottom end. Spools turbo faster and for small highly backpressured turbos can help all around power


Advance intake, retard exhaust- Rougher idle, more midrange, broader powerband, slight loss of off idle power, sometimes can gain top end on corked up head engines, more senstive to exhaust backpressure and header design


Retard intake, advance exhaust- smoother idle, narrower powerband, good trick on turbo engines with big cams, especialy small turbos on big engines with a lot of backpressure. Less senstive to intake and exhasut tuning and backpressure

 

If anybody would like to comment with tuning tips to squeeze out every last hp out of my car without having to buy anything, that would be great too, I cant afford the omniman video lol

 

how about some bent valves?

 

1 tooth is way too much of an adjustment its not going to work the way you think it will the only thing you will get is a motor that wont run right/at all.

 

Thats what I figured would be the outcome, thanks for the replies.

 

agreed, alot of cars these days just plain wont run if its off a tooth.......and even more of them will bend valves. best not to play with it.

id suggest 2 possibilities. save up for a vtec conversion(which can be had cheap if you look), or start saving for a turbo kit.

 

I know this is an old thread just adding my 2¢
TheCrimsonGhost666 are you working on a B16, if so the cam gear has 34 teeth, one tooth on cam gear is 10 degrees. Most adjustable cam gear advance & retard 10 or more on both sides of 0.
It depends on how many teeth are on the gear. ( 360 degrees ÷ 34 = 10.5 )
When advancing both cams you will lower the power band, which is GR8 for the take off.
But you will start losing power near the top of the RPM range, as you will notice.
If you add a ram air system, like getting cool air from the front grill with a scoop, it will help what you have lost in the upper RPM range + will add power. You will feel the different
I have advanced stock gear by one tooth & it helped the bottom end power.
Stock cams have retarded cam timing to reduce emission, advancing gives higher compression (by around 0.25 or more) which produces more Nitrogen oxide, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions. Here is a link to a vid.