Rb26 Adj. Cam Gears

[Don Dada]

Well its known that adjustable cam gears on a 26 increases power, but most ppl here have done some sort of ecu tuning at the same time to achieve good results.

It was seen that Beer Baron made about 26kw by tuning cam gears alone on a 26 that already had a pfc fitted but the tune left untouched.

Is it possible to make this kind of gain with a STOCK ecu runnin stock turbos, 3" catless exhaust, intake pods and 13-14psi (R33).

Thanks.

[Moodles2]

You can increase high end power by sacrificing alittle midrange, or get more midrange sacrificing alittle top end. I think the usual setup is 4 degrees on the intake cam gear and 2 degrees on the exhaust cam gear.

Edited May 27, 2009 by Moodles2

[R31Nismoid]

You can get gains on the stock ECU.

You can usually get around 240-250rwkw out of the stock ECU on stock turbos.

Cam gears need to be set for the car, there is no 'golden' setting as such.

[Don Dada]

You can get gains on the stock ECU.

You can usually get around 240-250rwkw out of the stock ECU on stock turbos.

Cam gears need to be set for the car, there is no 'golden' setting as such.

So cam gears is a must to get this 240 - 250rwkw with the supporting mods i mentioned previously???

Also if Beer Baron could jump in, i would like to know if when the gears were fitted and tuned , did affect your afr in any way?

[Beer Baron]

it will affect the tune a little. personally I wouldn't do them on a stock ecu. if you're starting with a bone stock GTR my order of mods would be:

exhaust (cat back and good cat at least, front pipes only if you really want to)

pods or high flow panel filter

ECU and EBC together. (power FC is good, cheap and easy to get tuned, and the hand controller is a handy monitoring tool) set boost to 14psi or whatever you're comfortable with.

Cam gears. best idea is get the ecu, ebc and cam gears all together and get them tuned all together that way if it does affect your tune it can be compensated for.

after that I'd add:

nismo fuel pump (piece of mind, all GTR pumps are 10+ years old)

some kind of hard pipe kit (stock piping set-up is pretty average)

oil cooler (very good idea on any tuned RB26)

then leave it there and enjoy 260rwkw without having broken the bank. That whole lot could be done under $5,000 inc labour and give you about 80rwkw gain over a stock 180rwkw 32 GTR. and it will be nice and responsive.

yes it's possible to get your 240 or so rwkw but the stock ecu could well hold things up. Look at getting a nistune (apparently they can adapt a 32 GTR ecu to run your 33) or a power FC. they are the options I'd look at. second hand 32/33 power FCs often go as low as $800 or $900 which is a bargain. the biggest gain of the cam gears is midrange not top end.

[short-shift]

And given that these basic mods had been carried out, what would be a good starting point for cams to be dialed into +/-.

For a home based tweaker, like myself.

[Beer Baron]

well there are base settings to start from (advance inlet a few degrees, retard exhaust a little) but it's one of those things you really need to do on the dyno so you can see the changes and get the result you want.

some settings will give you more top end with no losses anywhere.

some will give more top end with a loss in mid range

some will give more mid range with a loss of top end

some will give you less top end and less mid-range power

and the money setting will give a decent midrange increase and a small top end increase with no loss anywhere.

you really just have to test and see. every engine responds a little differently.

[Don Dada]

it will affect the tune a little. personally I wouldn't do them on a stock ecu. if you're starting with a bone stock GTR my order of mods would be:

exhaust (cat back and good cat at least, front pipes only if you really want to)

pods or high flow panel filter

ECU and EBC together. (power FC is good, cheap and easy to get tuned, and the hand controller is a handy monitoring tool) set boost to 14psi or whatever you're comfortable with.

Cam gears. best idea is get the ecu, ebc and cam gears all together and get them tuned all together that way if it does affect your tune it can be compensated for.

after that I'd add:

nismo fuel pump (piece of mind, all GTR pumps are 10+ years old)

some kind of hard pipe kit (stock piping set-up is pretty average)

oil cooler (very good idea on any tuned RB26)

then leave it there and enjoy 260rwkw without having broken the bank. That whole lot could be done under $5,000 inc labour and give you about 80rwkw gain over a stock 180rwkw 32 GTR. and it will be nice and responsive.

yes it's possible to get your 240 or so rwkw but the stock ecu could well hold things up. Look at getting a nistune (apparently they can adapt a 32 GTR ecu to run your 33) or a power FC. they are the options I'd look at. second hand 32/33 power FCs often go as low as $800 or $900 which is a bargain. the biggest gain of the cam gears is midrange not top end.

To tell u the truth i love the idea of getting a pfc along with the cam gears to make for a more or less stock good working 26 but.......That's the reason i swapped out the 25 for the 26 to start with,so i could get decent power without using any type of engine management.

U see where i'm from there are few ppl who are capable and whom i trust to tune my car so i basically do everything my self ,so i would prefer to just get the gears done using the stock ecu,profec b @14psi, (intake,exhaust and fuel pump already done)

So it all comes back to if it would make sense to fit the gears on stock ecu with all the other supporting mods.???

My objective is to get boost on a little earlier (geeze...i miss the 25) and a fat a$$ midrange...... screw top end

[Beer Baron]

sure, you can still do the cam gears on the stock ecu. like I said it's not ideal, but it should still work. definitely do it on a dyno though so you can measure any changes in afr and it's much easier to listen for detonation on the dyno too.

change your timing belt when you do the cam gears too. and if you don't have a timing belt I'm selling some genuine ones cheap. so buy one off me.

[Don Dada]

Definitely would be tuned on the dyno.

With these slight adjustments made to the gears, is it easy to make it detonate or should i be safe with the stock ecu?

That being said...... did u pick up any unusually high knk on the pfc while dialing in your gears?

[Beer Baron]

nope, they didn't make it knock. it's just wise to be vigilant when making any tuning change that's all. and make sure they remember the difference between crank degrees and camshaft degrees.

[Don Dada]

Well just need to sort out my boost control and then look into sourcing some gears.

Like i said i'll be doing it my self so when the time comes i sure i'll need some advice then.

And about the timing belt..... i don't think it would make sense to pay for shipping to the next side of the globe!!! Thanks anyway.

[R31Nismoid]

there is nothing wrong with using cam gears on the stock ECU if you are dialing in on a dyno.

they are not 'needed' for 240-250rwkw on stock turbos, they will just make it a little nicer

IMO hard pipe kits are bad and a waste of money, especially with larger turbos and the very well documented issues surrounding turbo surge due to hard pipes.

The stock pipes actually stop/alleviate the surge due to minor flexing, so their purpose is very good (like a lot of Nissan OEM gear)