JJsQwuik

iTrader: (17)

Heys whats up, my question is what is the biggest cam i can put into my car and still use the stock torque converter. My car is an 02 Z28 with full bolt ons except for gears, theyre still stock but looking to upgrade to 3.73. My tuning will be done by my friend LOU and AL from LOUS performance here in SoCal..I still want to DD my car cause its the only car I have. Im not looking for the most HP i can squeeze but a good 40hp ill be sweet. Any input would really help. Thanks

JonCR96Z

iTrader: (33)

You'll be hard pressed to get 40rwhp out of a cam that doesn't make the car drive like **** on the stock stall.

Even a smaller quality stall will have more performance gain than a small cam and will still be very drivable. If by chance it's too loose for you then add some gear to help with the drivablity.

Paint_It_Black

iTrader: (1)

I think you'd get more out of a converter and no cam. A stall would be my first mod in an a4 every time.

02*C5

iTrader: (1)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^By far the best advise.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


The biggest cam you can run with a stock converter is a stock cam but that's my personal opinion. I have a friend who is running heads, cam, and a blower on his G8 and it is a dog down low. He fell more on his face of the line than a 5 year old kid at a park. If you do not have a stall to get you in the "sweet" spot of the cam you will do a lot of work for nothing.

VincesSS

iTrader: (1)

I ran a 226/226 112 patriot camshaft on the stock converter in my 98 a4 3.23 gears. I did some home ported 241's and had them shaved .020 along with a valve job. It idled around 600rpms and sounded NASTY. It ended up making I think 390rwhp on a dynojet and ran great. Obviously not an ideal drag racer, but still pulled 60' in the 1.8s, when it only did 1.9s with bolt ons. I don't care for the track and my friends go out and cruise and end up doing a lot of bridge runs so the cam was more important than the converter to me.

You can definately do it with a good tuner, mine was jeremy formato, but it is not ideal and if you're looking for bang for the buck (et wise) the converter is the right choice.

Slash8915

iTrader: (21)

I would say the BIGGEST would be something like a 228r on 114lsa

supernova1972

There are alot of cams that will work with a stock convertor but they will all be dogs. I've seen a 224 stock stall T/A get beat by a lid, catback M6 Camaro before, it bogged down low horribly. There is no reason not to get a stall before a cam swap unless you want to build a POS.

tg580

Just put a stall on it. I was real skeptical about a stall also. I have a 3200 stall and it is very streetable. You would have no problem dailey driving it.

supernova1972

There isn't a form of driving a convertor wouldnt make your setup better.

David Q

The car will be much faster with a big converter and a stock cam, then a big cam and a stock converter. After I did a cam install with a stock converter and stock gears I was very dissapointed. The car drove like crap, died every time I hit the brakes, couldn't keep it running at a stoplight, couldn't back it up the drive way, all around drove like ****. The converter by far is the best gain for an A4 car.

VincesSS

iTrader: (1)

Right, but we're not talking about more of a comparison of results from only a converter v. only a camshaft and they both have their pros and cons. If I got stuck with another auto car and had to make the choice I'd do the camshaft again because it would absolutely **** on a converter only car from any speed past 20 and that means more to me.

VincesSS

iTrader: (1)

Bad tuning or waaay to big of a camshaft.

NC98Z

iTrader: (1)

If you get anything bigger than 220/220 duration your cars going to fail California smog inspection.,

Detoxx03

iTrader: (14)

Either do it right or don't do it at all. If your too concerned about mpg and driveability get a 224 cam and a 3200 stall or sell it and buy something else. I run a 3600 stall with my cam and get 23 mpg and it drives just as smooth as stock. Most of it is in the tune man.

Gatsby

iTrader: (7)

Definitely do the stall before the cam. I was really skeptical of doing a stall at all, let alone a 3600rpm one because you can't really accurately describe the feeling of a stalled car to someone. After the first drive I was hooked and now I'm ready for a 4000rpm. I just got my new cam in (torquer 3) and it really took out the slack in the converter.

But to be more on topic, the dyno graph with a stock stall and bigger cam would be pretty embarassing. From idle to 3500 rpms it would be terrible.

Also considering the work involved and the money, a stall would be much faster and cheaper. You can do a stall for about $700 brand new, and about 6 hours time (if you're not too familiar with dropping the 4l60e). A cam would be $1000 or more and take about 12-16 hours if you're not familiar with it.

Bill'sWS6

iTrader: (6)

You said you were going to upgrade your gears. Do the cam and instead of gears get yourself a good converter. You can find some great used ones on the board for fairly cheap.

02ws602wrx

Well guys I would also like to see what the answer to the original question is due to the fact that I had a 3200 vig stall that was absolutely horrible on the street in my lid,full exhaust car. Sometimes it would have problems shifting and then I went for a drive on the highway at 60mph it was fine but if I floored it at 60 the car would scream the rpms would go up but the car went no where I once got destroyed on the highway by a lightly modded 4.6L mustang manual, put car lenghts on me. Ive got 3.73s anyway. My transmission finally went and I opted for the stock converter and nitrous but was curious what the biggest came you could put in was.

jetlag

iTrader: (32)

196/204..somewhere around those specs

thunderstruck507

iTrader: (18)

sounds like you had a bad/faulty stall to me

my yank ss3600 drives almost like stock at light throttle, then jumps around 1/2 throttle to over 3000...but it doesn't pull on the brakes and can actually get out of its own way from a stop or low rpm roll

I did my cam before my stall and it was lame as **** being as slow as a bolt on a4 and getting my *** handed to me by m6 cars with mild bolt ons

the stock cam is borderline too big for a stock stall

Quik Sand

iTrader: (6)

stalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllll