Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Forced Induction cam timing vs. ignition timing

Cam gears can be very usefull. We don't have enough (more than one person) who have used them to know how much they help.
Retarding cam timing will generally shift you torque curve higher up the rpm range if done on both intake and exhaust equally. If you tune both separately you can adjust the width of the power band a little at the expense of quick drop-off in torque. Generally you can help fine tune the operational range where you want to maximize torque...within a small range based upon your base cam grind.
FI likes it if you use cam gears to make large torque bumps at certain rpms, can be done by chaning the intake/exhaust valve overlap since the cams are separate. THis just improves the breathing where the turbo is really efficient and makes for large power over the selected range. The range usually isn't very broad though.

Keyser uses adjustments in ignition timing and fuel along with a lot of boost. His big numbers have more ignition timing but require higher octane. Lower numbers are for street gas and essentially the only difference is ignition timing and boost level. Cam timing would allow him another degree of freedom in adjustibility.