NA cam, High Compression, and now turbo?
Thread Starter
10 Second Club
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 176
Likes: 1
From: Seattle
NA cam, High Compression, and now turbo? Alright its a long story as to how we got here but here is the deal. I just got the motor back in my TA and got it running for the first time in 9 months. The build is as follows:
2001 Firebird M6 soon to have 8.8 rear with 3.73s
2003 LQ9 block SBE
243 CNC ported heads shaved .020. Guessing a little over 11:1 compression
LS9 head gaskets copper sprayed and held down with ARP bolts.
BTR stage 3 NA cam (231/242 .617"/.592" 112+2) with LS7 lifters
and a bunch of other new and cool stuff that doesn't really pertain to my question here.
I had purchased and planned to run a nitrous setup on this but as the world turns I just picked up a turbo hotside for dirt cheap. Frankly I am not terribly interested in tearing the motor back apart to set it up better for boost considering I just got it back together and its race season.
I did enough research on here to see that people are running high compression setups with success but none with this cam.
My goals are to add 150 to 200 WHP (same as I would spray with nitrous) for a total of 6-650 WHP. I want to keep it on low boost for obvious reasons. I am thinking about throwing a VS racing billet 78/75 on there with straight meth injection and seeing what happens.
I realize its not ideal but not ideal does not necessarily mean wont work.
So question is, anyone running a similar setup? and otherwise tell me why I shouldn't do it. I am a turbo guy at heart and knew I wasn't going to be happy with nitrous or NA but life circumstances pushed me the way I went. I do plan on trying to sell the motor as well but I would like to get back to having a north of 600 WHP car ASAP and don't want to have to wait for it to sell.
Thanks in advance.
2001 Firebird M6 soon to have 8.8 rear with 3.73s
2003 LQ9 block SBE
243 CNC ported heads shaved .020. Guessing a little over 11:1 compression
LS9 head gaskets copper sprayed and held down with ARP bolts.
BTR stage 3 NA cam (231/242 .617"/.592" 112+2) with LS7 lifters
and a bunch of other new and cool stuff that doesn't really pertain to my question here.
I had purchased and planned to run a nitrous setup on this but as the world turns I just picked up a turbo hotside for dirt cheap. Frankly I am not terribly interested in tearing the motor back apart to set it up better for boost considering I just got it back together and its race season.
I did enough research on here to see that people are running high compression setups with success but none with this cam.
My goals are to add 150 to 200 WHP (same as I would spray with nitrous) for a total of 6-650 WHP. I want to keep it on low boost for obvious reasons. I am thinking about throwing a VS racing billet 78/75 on there with straight meth injection and seeing what happens.
I realize its not ideal but not ideal does not necessarily mean wont work.
So question is, anyone running a similar setup? and otherwise tell me why I shouldn't do it. I am a turbo guy at heart and knew I wasn't going to be happy with nitrous or NA but life circumstances pushed me the way I went. I do plan on trying to sell the motor as well but I would like to get back to having a north of 600 WHP car ASAP and don't want to have to wait for it to sell.
Thanks in advance.
My compression wasn't as high as your (10:2:1) but, the cam I had was similar (236/246 612/612 110lsa. I had a hard time spooling my turbo below 4k with an auto. Once in boost it pulled really hard to 7k but that doesn't when races when you're crawling out of the hole. I just finished swapping in an Isky 218/218 570/570 112 cam, hopefully this will the get the 1.32ar going faster.
Last edited by MM98; Mar 17, 2017 at 08:45 AM.
TECH Junkie
Joined: Jul 2015
Posts: 3,012
Likes: 48
Alright its a long story as to how we got here but here is the deal. I just got the motor back in my TA and got it running for the first time in 9 months. The build is as follows:
2001 Firebird M6 soon to have 8.8 rear with 3.73s
2003 LQ9 block SBE
243 CNC ported heads shaved .020. Guessing a little over 11:1 compression
LS9 head gaskets copper sprayed and held down with ARP bolts.
BTR stage 3 NA cam (231/242 .617"/.592" 112+2) with LS7 lifters
and a bunch of other new and cool stuff that doesn't really pertain to my question here.
I had purchased and planned to run a nitrous setup on this but as the world turns I just picked up a turbo hotside for dirt cheap. Frankly I am not terribly interested in tearing the motor back apart to set it up better for boost considering I just got it back together and its race season.
I did enough research on here to see that people are running high compression setups with success but none with this cam.
My goals are to add 150 to 200 WHP (same as I would spray with nitrous) for a total of 6-650 WHP. I want to keep it on low boost for obvious reasons. I am thinking about throwing a VS racing billet 78/75 on there with straight meth injection and seeing what happens.
I realize its not ideal but not ideal does not necessarily mean wont work.
So question is, anyone running a similar setup? and otherwise tell me why I shouldn't do it. I am a turbo guy at heart and knew I wasn't going to be happy with nitrous or NA but life circumstances pushed me the way I went. I do plan on trying to sell the motor as well but I would like to get back to having a north of 600 WHP car ASAP and don't want to have to wait for it to sell.
Thanks in advance.
2001 Firebird M6 soon to have 8.8 rear with 3.73s
2003 LQ9 block SBE
243 CNC ported heads shaved .020. Guessing a little over 11:1 compression
LS9 head gaskets copper sprayed and held down with ARP bolts.
BTR stage 3 NA cam (231/242 .617"/.592" 112+2) with LS7 lifters
and a bunch of other new and cool stuff that doesn't really pertain to my question here.
I had purchased and planned to run a nitrous setup on this but as the world turns I just picked up a turbo hotside for dirt cheap. Frankly I am not terribly interested in tearing the motor back apart to set it up better for boost considering I just got it back together and its race season.
I did enough research on here to see that people are running high compression setups with success but none with this cam.
My goals are to add 150 to 200 WHP (same as I would spray with nitrous) for a total of 6-650 WHP. I want to keep it on low boost for obvious reasons. I am thinking about throwing a VS racing billet 78/75 on there with straight meth injection and seeing what happens.
I realize its not ideal but not ideal does not necessarily mean wont work.
So question is, anyone running a similar setup? and otherwise tell me why I shouldn't do it. I am a turbo guy at heart and knew I wasn't going to be happy with nitrous or NA but life circumstances pushed me the way I went. I do plan on trying to sell the motor as well but I would like to get back to having a north of 600 WHP car ASAP and don't want to have to wait for it to sell.
Thanks in advance.
Thread Starter
10 Second Club
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 176
Likes: 1
From: Seattle
I suppose I could go with a tried and trued "GT45" or "GT42" if that exhaust wheel would be more in line with this cam.
Any other turbo recommendations?
My compression wasn't as high as your (10:2:1) but, the cam I had was similar (236/246 612/612 110lsa. I had a hard time spooling my turbo below 4k with an auto. Once in boost it pulled really hard to 7k but that doesn't when races when you're crawling out of the hole. I just finished swapping in an Isky 218/218 570/570 112 cam, hopefully this will the get the 1.32ar going faster.
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Question on this. I'm still in the research stage of going turbo on my truck and just trying to learn here. You say your combo starts to spool around 4K and it's laggy below that. But if you were running say a 3,800 stall wouldn't you instantly be in boost when you go WOT? Or is that not how it works? I Need some enlightenment
Last edited by MM98; Mar 17, 2017 at 01:31 PM.
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