I heard you lose power running a CTR exhaust cam without raising your compression... It's just better to run the intake cam and not the exhaust cam? Also, how much compression would I need to make the exhaust cam efficient? Would a 1-layer head gasket help enough? Thanks in advance.

 

I wouldn't worry about that.... The best thing for you, OE cam wise would be the CTR intake cam. The exhaust cam really isn't going to do that much. If you want a lil more power out of it look into some Cometic head gaskets but there is no need to do so. If you still wanna get a thinner head gasket then look into ones around .015"-.020". Have fun.

 

You don't need to worry about compression for 'R' cams, Skunk2 stage1's, Toda Spec A, or Spoon intake cam, as JDMspecEG6 says.

You only need to worry about that if you go big VTEC cams like Toda B or higher spec. I believe, when the lobe life becomse 12mm or higher you'll need compression to keep the cam happy. Raising compression in general for NA application is good thing to do anyways if you want to make more power, whether you have R cams or bigger than R cams.