what are the best cam gears for tuning? i dont want some pieces of crap that are going to strip. any suggestions. and please dont hate telling me not to get them.

 

There are no "best" cam gears. Telling you not to get them is not "hating." They really aren't needed, because they don't add power, but you can move your powerband around, if that's what you're trying to do. Looks like you need a tune for "tuning" far more than cam gears, and beyond that, you need an licp, change your MBC (yours is the worst), change your BOV, remove the crank pulley (dangerous mod), add then add alky. Cam gears should be the least of your worries, imo.

 

I've heard really bad things about the HKS cam gears...I would go with AEM personally.

 

Hi,

Helix ultra-light cam gears. They are only .99lbs each (reduction in rotating mass), good quality gears, I'm running them and like them. Best of all they're cheap ($199/pair)! The cam gears do shift the power band, which is great to fine tune for your driving conditions.

Thanks,

Gary
Gruppe-S

 

what was wrong w/ the hks cam gears?

 

I too am interested in knowing why HKS cam gears are bad?

 

Well HKS having only 3 locking bolts vs. all other cam gears I can think of with 5 locking bolts. Which one would you rather use?

 

You seriously need to learn to keep some of your opinions to yourself. He didn't ask "What do I need to make my car right in Warrtalons eye's?". He asked about cam gears. You gave your opinion on that in the first three sentence's.

OP:

They all have more than enough adjustment to do about any realistic timing configuration you want.

Generally the more clamping bolts the better. It's been a while since I looked at what is on the market but, if there are any with a steel tooth ring those would be my first choice. Weight is important but, on my gears I've noticed the anodizing wearing off on the sprockets that is why I recomend steel if they are out there.

I've got the Vishnu gears and unless they've fixed the issue they have (had) with the timing marks not lining up with 0 I wouldn't get them.

 

ns, i never noticed that about the hks cam gears.

 

That's interesting to know, so if you had MIVEC, then you wouldn't even bother changing the cam gear on the exhaust side and just use the MIVEC to control the intake side?

 

My machine shop had a customer whose entire engine was destroyed because he was using HKS cam gears and they slipped (pistons said hello to the valves, cracked pistons, valve train was all screwed up, etc.). There have been many of these incidents with the HKS cam gears, I would steer clear...

 

Not necessarily. I mean, I wouldn't do it right away, but we really haven't seen much research done on the IX with cam gears with or without upgraded cams. We know that the MIVEC intake cam tuning can make power, and we know that upgrading both cams can make power, but I haven't seen a lot of cam gear testing. On the VIII, there are MOSTLY used to move the powerband around. -4/-1 on 272/272s loses a little low-end power/torque, but gives a LOT of topend. There are other examples with other settings and other cam combos, but you get the idea. I would assume that cam gears on a IX would still be useful for moving the powerband around, but I'm not sure how that will work in correspondence with the MIVEC.

 

Has anyone on here had a 3 bolt that slipped?

 

Bumped for suggestions ... I have a HKS cam gear lying around. Would it be worth getting it fitted along with the GSC cams I have or should I just sell it and not take the risk of a cam gear slip?

 

After looking at david buschurs post on the effects of using a cam gear I at least was convinced not to use them.

While the power was moved to the top end with cam timing the area under the graph decreased. The graph showed all the gains on the low end were negated and just this tiny bump was produced for power at the top end. I'd rather has all the lower gains personally.