be good

hello everyone i'm looking for an answer to some conflicting information. in my 1997 ls1 i have a hot cam ,an air filter and a set of shorty headers. other then that it's stock. i use the car for road racing, and i was looking for good power in the 3000-5000rpm range (to get me out of the corners). i asked the guys at summit, and they said to retard the cam a few degrees. i retarded it 1 degree, i know it's not allot but i've never timed a cam before. i hear from other places that advancing a cam gives you better bottom end. when i was getting the car tuned i hit 330whp, i feel this is a bit low. the car some how does not feel as fast as it should and i was wondering if retarding the cam was the best move. the motor is out of the car right now while i do some chassis work, and while it's out i was wondering what is a good timing for a hot cam? i have a spl timing chain so i can adjust the cam timing.
thanks for any help in advance
-Johnny

PREDATOR-Z

Change cam

3rdCoastPowerSports

iTrader: (5)

why would you go through all that trouble to retard or advance the cam? if im gonna pull the balancer and timing cover im upgrading cams and other internal components

p.s. advancing the cam tends to bring the power band in sooner and retarding the cam tends to extend it (bias tword the top end)

be good

i retarted it when i was putting the car together. and as of right now the car is in pieces after last season. after every season i do a tear down. i upgraded the valve spring and oil pump already. i will be adding apr rod bolts before it goes back in. i don't have any experience timing cams so that's why i ask. does anyone know where a good staring point is for cam timing is on a hot cam?

redtail2426

iTrader: (10)

the hot cam is really not going to get you very far, it wont matter if you retard it or advance it, its just not going to make great power.You would be much better off calling a sponsor like texas speed and having them give you a cam for what your looking to do with the car. If your dead set on the hot cam, then good luck, i really have no advice for that

be good

well i'm rebuilding the car again, this time I'm going with a set of texas speed heads. again i'm looking to get the cam timing set. i like the hot cam. the idol sounds sweet and i don't want allot of lift. i need longevity out of this motor with all the road racing/auto cross/drifting im going to do during the 2012 season. so ill ask one more time. does anyone know what i should set this cam too? everyone else is running 370hp with their hot cams.

DETROIT_AREA_00_SS

iTrader: (7)

Dude, if you are going to invest in nice heads...invest in an excellent cam. Seriously. The hotcam was hot like 12yrs ago.

Lee12609

iTrader: (3)

sell the hotcam on craigslist.

get a custom spec'd cam and call it a day.

chrisfrost

iTrader: (8)

You could buy a new cam with say lift in the .581 range and dur @ .050" lift of say 228deg - 236deg and the valve springs would be like the next step above stockers and You would have like 400rwhp ,,,,,,,or since the RPM's You're looking for most of You're power at are mid-range and up I would say either ded on center or 1-2deg advanced ,,,,,,,probably like 1 deg advanced will probably have the most power right where You need it .

LS1 Racing

iTrader: (15)

I ran this cam back in 2004 on my old '99 SS. With stock LS1 heads, LTs with no cats, and a tune, I put 374 to the rear wheels. I was limited by bad O2 sensors and was supposed to retune, but the tuner was killed in a car accident before I could get it back to him (anyone remember Mark @ Andy's Auto in SoCal?).

Anyway, I liked that cam so much (for what it was), I bought another to go in my LQ4/243 combo that's going in my '02 Z28.

Seems like everyone knocks the Hot Cam, but the folks I talk to in the real world (read: not internet bench racers) like Dave @ West Coast Cylinder Heads who tell me that it's a great cam in a mild application. It's easy on the valvetrain so you're not changing springs every 20k miles, and gives a nice 30-35 HP improvement alone without killing torque or MPG. It also has a mean sounding lope.

I'll admit that I wasn't sure which way to go when I was picking what was going into my LQ4, but after talking to guys who know these motors, I found it's still a good choice. Are there bigger with more lift and more aggressive lobes that will make more power? Absolutely. But for the cost (I paid $200 for my HC), HP increase, and durability, it's a nice cam for the money.

01WS6/tamu

iTrader: (37)

We're not bench racers you were here looking for info and we gave it to you. Hotcam sounds great but that's where it ends. Call TSP get a much better running cam that is perfectly suited to what you need the car to do and never look back. Theres no point in wasting money on awesome heads only to not make more power and get full potential out of them from a crap cam.

With modern cams you don't have to sacrifice valvetrain reliability it's all in how you have them spec it out for you.

ScottyBG

I would recommend replacing the cam as well, there are just much better grinds out there, in every way. The cam is the centerpoint of your engine, not the place to compromise. Its not like your sacrificing low end or somthing, many other cams will outperform it everywhere above 3k rpm. It is just such a mild cam that its more of an agressive factory piece than a true performance cam. You say you use the car for road racing, racing is not the place for an inferior cam. In a mainly street use car, and you got it for free, you could make an arguement for it. Somthing like the EPS 226/234 or 226/230 could pick you up another 20-30hp over the hot cam with little to no sacrifice in the bottom end? Of course there are many others out there that will make similar numbers, not just EPS. Why would you not want that?

If you search the forums you can find several threads where people replaced thier hot cam with another choice, and were delighted. In fact if you read the "Mistakes I made" sticky using the GM hot cam is in there many times. Messing with a degree or 2 advanced or retarded won't change the output much, you won't really notice it, your talking single digits, maybe 5 HP moving it from bottom to the top of the reasonable range. Retarding it will help your dyno number, but won't make the car run any faster, seat of the pants it may feel a little different but not what I would call faster. Advancing it can make it feel a little snappier though, but give you a lower dyno number. Its like that silk purse/sows ear thing, your handicapped before you start playing with your degree wheel and piston stop, as long as that stick is in there.

LS1 Racing

iTrader: (15)

Relax man, I'm not even the OP on this thread. I'm just someone who's had first-hand experience with the Hot Cam, and I'm here to say that it has a purpose, and it's not the piece of scrap metal that you and many other people make it out to be. Are there better, more modern grinds that can be tailored exactly to one's needs? Of course. Has cam tech changed on these motors in the past decade? Certainly. But the way people get killed on this site for even uttering the words "Hot Cam" is laughable, when 99% of them have never tried it themselves.

For what the OP is trying to accomplish, the Hot Cam is a viable option. Could he make more power with a brand x grind, sure he could. But he's also not going to be down 50 HP to a TSP alternative, either.

For my build (remember, I'm not the OP!), I'm on a strict budget. I don't have $700-plus for a cam/spring/retainer/pushrod kit from one of the sponsors. I paid $200 for the Hot Cam that I can use with the yellow springs I've already got. Big difference in cost. That was a big factor for me. When funds become more plentiful, I can always upgrade the cam.

That's the beauty of choice.

And lastly, when I said "internet racers", I wasn't knocking anyone. There's a lot of great knowledge here, and I don't take it for granted. But there's also a lot of herd mentality, and at some point you have to decide for yourself what will work for you. And that's what the OP did.

Zmg00camaross

iTrader: (11)

I ran 11.6 at 117 mph with a hotcam and ls1 intake. Worked fine. Now its got a little larger cam in now

01WS6/tamu

iTrader: (37)

Nah I'm not worked up I intended it to sound conversational not argumentative does no good to argue here. I here what your saying the hot cam is def an improvement over a stock cam if it's free or really cheap. Just figured if he's dropping all that money on a set of heads he really ought to consider the bumpstick popping the valves also to get a really great combo for what he needs. Really gm designed the cam to work optimally with their heads so it may act completely different with a head swap jst food for thought.

You got the herd mentality right man I've been here long enough it's almost comical one day every body is giving brand x a blow job then 6 months or a year later everyones talking **** about the product. you got to do a lot of reading then read between the lines to kind of decide if something is right for your application

LS1 Racing

iTrader: (15)

Right on...I think we're on the same page. I've seen the fads come and go, and it looks like you've been here long enough to experience the same thing. Remember when the reverse split-pattern cam was the **** and everybody had to have one? Now they're pretty much known as a band-aid cam when you have a shitty intake. Who know what's coming next!

I think you did hit on something above and that's combination. With so many combos out there, you're going to get a wide variation of opinions on pretty much everything except the "biggest and baddest". There are plenty of 400+ RWHP LS cars with just a cam and bolt-ons. It's even pretty easy to do, given the money and the availability of a reputable tuner, they also don't come without drawbacks. I come from the old school that says bigger isn't always better, and in my current situation, it's enforced by a limited budget. In working out my combo with various parties, it was determined that the Hot Cam would be very complimentary to my fresh, lightly-ported 243 heads. One it's together, we'll work hard on the tune to try to maximize performance, and I'm hopeful that it will be within 10-15 HP of the larger name brand cams that have been suggested for my setup. And if that's the result, I'll be satisfied, because I would have saved myself another $500 over buying a name brand kit. It's also very satisfying to do it this way and to resist the temptation of throwing money at parts.

I guess we'll have to wait and see, as I should have it in very soon.

As to the OP, I do agree that 330 RHWP is very low for an HC-equipped motor. Was it ever dyno'd prior to the cam install? How many miles on the motor? LS motors don't usually lose much power with age, but it's possible if it wasn't serviced often enough. Have you done a compression test? Is it a REAL Hot Cam? I know there have been several copies of camshafts that aren't close to the published specs.

PREDATOR-Z

Hmmm, band aid?

A cam is like a tug of war. RS cams shine under specific parameters, just as standard splits require different supports.

Because if the below is band aid, well to each his own I guess:
LS1 in C5
232/228 110-1 LSA,
59cc ported 243 heads
Flycut on intake
90/90 FAST intake.
+ rest of bolt ons.

Uhh, did I mention 400lbs trq at 3500 rpm in stock cubes?

DETROIT_AREA_00_SS

iTrader: (7)

Real world, eh?

I have owned 6 LS1 cars and have spent atleast $30,000 over the years in mods. My current combo which is almost finished should run low 9's or high 8's in the 1/4. I have atleast $17,000 in mods on this one alone.I think that qualifies for real world when you are deciding what parachute to buy....

be good

how many replies have there been and this is the fist one on topic lol. thank you for asking. the motor is in a Miata and i bought it used off Craigslist. i have no real information about the motor or it's prior life. i do know it's from a 97 corvette. it has the perimeter bolt heads. it doesn't burn any oil or water, and it seems to run fine. i haven't done any tests to it. i have pulled the oil pan and inspected for water or any other clues of miss care. everything to a visual inspection seemed clued to a well cared for motor (i never changed the oil in my del sol. i know what a not cared for engine looks like lol). it is a real hot cam. i bought it from summit racing brand new.

when it was first dynoed it was at 275 (factory tune with ported throttle body, hot cam, shorty headers) after the tune it was at 330. i figured the heads where choking the power being that they are the lowest compression and lowest flowing heads ever made. that's why i was going to upgrade them. i installed the hot cam with the slp double roller timing chain and oil pump. i thought i advanced the cam 1*. after watching a power block episode when they where timing a cam with the same gear set, i think i might have gotten it backwards. so i might be 1* retarded. The bottom end power is not as impressive as my 4500rpm+ pull. i think i might have the cam set to have peak power out side of my rev-limiter.

LS1 Racing

iTrader: (15)

Okay, I was probably a bit harsh on the band aid comment. My understanding about reverse-splits is that they shine in situations where the intake is restricted. I have not run one, so I guess that makes me as guilty as the people I'm criticizing...Talking **** without trying stuff on my own.

I guess my point was, back when the reverse-splits came available, everyone had to run them, and the results where mixed. So you're absolutely right...It depends on the combo.

I'm happy for you.

How many miles do you have on a Hot Cam?