No you don't want to run with the cam cover off. That was just for the photo.

LOL, who cares how they perform without tuning? Yeah with a bone stock car only doing cam gears might not be a good solution and you might only net you 6-8hp as Brett suggested. But that is not the original question of the post. It is, if you have a Stage 1 what is the performance difference with and without the cam gears. The answer is more like 10 - 15HP when tuned with the XEDE. I really fail to see the point of wondering what the cam gears do without tuning. I mean your fuel pump won't pass that litmus test. It really doesn't do much until you add the supporting mods and then tune to its increased flow rate.

 

were you able to fit the cover on?

 

Yes, but you need to clip off the plastic 'flash' material on the inside of the cam cover.

 

Do those little set screws give enough clamping to keep the gears from getting loose over time?

 

I'm sorry, I mean to say "cam gears." That dyno plot is comparing our ECO with stock cam timing vs. our EVO with modified cam timing (through adj. cam gears).

Regards,
Shiv

 

You know what I meant - I meant only tuning with the cam gear - not just slapping a set of cam gears on and calling it a day. If I take a stock Evo, put on a 3" exhaust and then also adjust ignition timing and A/F ratios - and get 35hp, I can't dyno it and say 'look, my 3" exhaust added 35hp'.

Do you really fail to see the point, or are you just making confrontation? I was debating what Shiv's associate called substantial on stock cams - 6-8hp. My fuel pump is a supporting mod, and I'm not trying to sell them as a vendor to people claiming substantial HP gains on stock injectors.

No reason to argue really, I have cam gears /shrug
I'm just trying to help others who don't have my budget make a more educated approach to selecting mods. I'd pick quite a few other things over cam gears. GL with your car.

 

Million Dollar question...

That is why so much time is spent by manufacturers designing them. Also why you see some with six screws, anything to try and insure they hold and don't slip. In that respect the cam gears can become very costly.
There are companies that make indexed gears so if you know what setting you want on the gear, they will manufacture them with x amount of advance or retard in them so you have the reliability of a solid gear.

 

Yes we also thought about this problem of the Cam Gears getting lose over time. That's why we placed 5 set screws instead of the usual 3 (HKS, AEM) on our gears. Our Cam Gears also come pre-indexed, loctited and torqued for optimal horsepower gains on the Lancer Evo VIII. As the dyno graph shows at redline there is a 20 wheel horsepower gain, something that you will feel on the road.

Brett Payne
Vishnu Performance

 

AvatarofWar, Let me first say I have no intention of being conformational, especially since you personally have helped me in the past. I have just had a unique opportunity to see 8 Evos dyno last weekend. I was operating the DynoJet dyno and I have not had time to analyse all the graphs but without a doubt the cam gears were a noticeable improvement to all the cars that had them. I can tell you everyone there left with the impression that cam gears on Shiv's Stage 1 were the way to go. Give me some time and I will get some graphs together but unfortunately, I don't have a pure apples to apples car. But I do have several with and without cam gears at various stages of modification. Those with cam gears were always making more top end HP.

BTW, were are your cam gears set?

 

My car might be a good candidate for that measure - I'm running cam gears, but they are not advanced / retarted. It would be interesting to get some dyno time and tweak just that on my car and see what it does. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of dyno's near by

 

Anybody have any ideas where to get good cam gears cheap? About the cheapest I've found is just over $300.

 

We sell our Cam Gears for $280.00.

Brett Payne
Vishnu Performance