Not smaller cams, just properly designed and ground cams . . .

This is David talking about when he switched from HKS 272's to the 280's.
Trying to mess with the turbo and wastegate to make more boost didn't work, but swapping cams DID pick up more top end power even though the boost didn't change. . .

Also, even though he could not make more boost, installing a ported exhaust mani and ported turbine housing picked up ~10whp through the entire powerband by letting the engine breathe and reducing backpressure . . .

 

If you changed nothing and simply added a green and injectors...... you would probably pick up 50whp.

At some point you have to take the plunge. I didn't believe the green was so hot until I actually got to tune one. Night and day difference even on pump gas.

 

Jeff, you are very true. But he is a friend of mine and I think I have a good idea what he wants/needs. I think he wants to try to maximize whatever turbo he is running to show his car and driving at the strip is as capable as any other car with similar mods. I could be way off, but that's what I think he wants. . .

An FPG and injectors would cost $2600 figuring the cost of the turbo, install kit, injectors, and new pump gas and race gas tunes . . . that is ALOT of money for 50whp - IF he even makes that.

Back when I was running the BR20G9-5 and the Green came out I jumped all over it! I expected 20-30whp gains just from the swap. What did I get - NOTHING!! ZERO WHP increase above 5500 rpm. It wasn't the turbo's fault. It wasn't the tuner's fault. It was the cam's fault. I had a set of cams that made absolutely amazing torque, but fell flat on the top end. That is EXACTLY the same problem this guy is having. I spent THOUSANDS of dollars trying to "fix" the restriction in my car to gain more top end power - to no avail. It was the cams. It was always the cams.

As soon as I first saw Greg's (liqquid) dyno graph a year ago I knew right away the cams were an issue. The shape of it is just all wrong for the mods. The shape of it looks like something you'd expect with a stroker. Peak WHP at 5000 RPM?? That is not normal. All the rest of the parts on his car are fool proof. You can look at them and say - "that exhaust looks normal". But the cams, you can't just eyeball them and say they look good. You can't just ASSUME that they match the quoted specs . . .

To swap cams, get a ported exhaust mani and hotside, an open intake, and retuned would cost about $1000 and may net the same results as an FPG while allowing him to stay on the "stock turbo" list.

Another option he is comtemplating is a stock motor pump gas 35R turbo setup. This would cost $3000 - $4500 dollars, may net a little higher WHP than a stock size turbo on race gas, and would save him $500 on fuel costs over the course of a year. But, if the cams really are the restriction, as I believe, he will still have to get a new set at some point . . .

 

Evolutionary, I agree that your old car had some issues, but I make peak torque where it should be, not like your old car with revolvers where it looked as if the intake cam was ground 20 degrees advanced, and looking at your dyno from that car when you had the HKS 280's, sure it made its power up higher than mine does, but that was with an AEM EMS (speed density) and a cone filter intake... at 7000 rpm it made only 15whp more than mine does.

I really think that if I added AEM with speed density, I might gain 15 horse. NOT apples to apples.

As far as comparing your Evo9 with Evogreen to mine, I want to compare cars with the stock EVO8 turbo, and no Mivec anything else is also not apples to apples!!

I don't want this to turn into a cam debate anyways...

A few people were talking about hardpipe intake, versus stock airbox mod, versus just the cone filter with adapter?

I'm thinking of getting the cone filter with adapter, does anyone have experience going from this setup to a hardpipe? From everything I've read so far, seems like the adapter and filter might just be the way to go

 

I personally haven't seen gains from a hard pipe on the stock turbo. Open filter yes, but with OEM induction tube.

Plus it keeps it looking more stock. Also you won't have to deal as much with MAF rescaling.

btw, I found an old graph from my personal evo back when I had the stock 8 turbo on it:



HP curve look familar?

This was with:

TBE no cat
HKS 272/272 cams
HKS cam gears at +1/-1
No porting whatsoever
Stock 02 housing / exhaust manifold
Stock IC pipes
Stock FMIC
Stock airbox with drop-in
Stock WG actuator
Injectors
Fuel Pump
100 oct @ 26psi peak
Ecu-Boost with GM solenoid

Obviously my torque curve looks different because of less boost.

I never had a open filter with the stock turbo as I swapped it on when I installed the green because the green barely made more power than the stock turbo while the car still had the stock box on it.

 

Great, that sounds good to me!



Here's what mine looks like with about 21 to 22 psi....pump gas. That was also before the Forge DV, IC, LICP, and cam gears. Basically the cams, 3" TBE, MBC andd email flash from Jestr. From this curve you can see it has almost the same response as yours... I bet now that I have the HD wastegate arm, it holds out better to redline on pump, but no dyno on that yet, as I've been using ECUflash to tune pumpgas on the road, only racegas on the dyno (cuts the tuning fees down!)