So I have a A4 2000 z28 stock with bolt ons. Factory 3.23 gears. This winter she’s going in for a cam. And new transmission, car is going to be built for dig and roll races. I been thinking about the 228r cam from tsp. I have speed engineering lt’s new in the box just have to install them. Car has a catless Magnaflow cat back already. Mainly just trying to have a fun summer dd car that may or may not see the strip here and there. Wouldn’t mind going to 3.73s or 4.10s if need be. Just looking for some insight from some guys with the a4 and cam combos
thanks in advance

 

Im voting 228R or 224R. I didnt go big when I cammed my car which is usually not the approved method here. Biggest question you have to ask yourself is if you're going to re-stall or not. That will make your cam choice for you.

 

3.73 versus 4.10 I've had both, 3.73 is the way to go. Pair of the gears with a nice lightweight 10" torque converter, pick a stall speed between 3,500 and 4,000. Even the smallest cam is going to tempt you to want to shift 6600-7000rpm so the 4L60E could need some attention before you can cam the engine and raise the rev limit and let it shift where it wants to. Stay away from shift kits and .500 boost valves. If the transmission is still stock original, it will last longer with a sonnax adjustable servo pin, fitzall tcc plug, and some good careful tuning, imo torque management is actually a good thing if you have a cable driven A4

Regardless of which cam you pick doing that stuff first is going to make the biggest improvement in how the car takes off and drives Given your goals. The cam's not going to do anything for you if the car can't handle it. In the same regard lower valve lift and lower valve spring pressures are going to be more reliable than higher ones. Look at the original gm showroom stock racing ASA cam. It's been gapping mustangs for decades at 7k+ rpm with only .525 lift and 285lbs of seat pressure.

All the cams you listed would work great with the 3.73 gear and a 3500 to 4000 stall so you can add that after you get the driveline sorted out. 26" tires ftw. never I mean never. I really mean never put anything bigger than 26-in diameter tires on the car seriously they will only slow you down.

I don't really see any reason to use a single pattern Camshaft unless you're planning to turbocharge it, nothing against the old TSP stuff It works just fine but there's more power to be had with the same drivability as the 228, it's been proven time and again more exhaust duration is going to pull it out farther with a wider powerband and make a little more horsepower up top and since you need the stall and the gears anyway to make it all work right anyways there's no reason not to go with a big one, Use the right parts and you'll have a solid and reliable mid-low -11 second car You can drive anywhere and rely on everyday.

 

i vote texas speed bald eagle n/a cam 227/234 .600/.600 111lsa 109icl.

 

my 01 currently is running a MS4 cam. actually the previous owner chose the cam and i inherited the car after he passed. the car's a h/c/i/e. the previous owner ran a pb 11.3@122 on a slipping 'built' 4l60e where the 2-3 upshift was banging off the rev limiter. after i got the car, swapped out the 4l60e and currently running a th400. no track times yet.
car has 12 bolt moser with 3.73 on a 25" tall tire.

 

Go get some 10's!!!

 

You may be disappointed with that TH400. Yes, its a Helluva durable transmission, far superior to the 4L60E. Except when the 4L60E is working properly. The 4L60E will always be inferior to the TH400 durability wise. However, the TH400 requires at least 20 more hp input than the 4L60E to equal hp at the output shaft. First gear is considerably lower in the 4L60E, too. Yes, the TH400 is the better trans than the 4L60E, by far. But you'd need at least a 4.56 gear to equal acceleration of the 4L60E running a 3.73, with both in first gear.

 

​​​​​​ Here's the thing. I think I have this figured out and I see so many people swapping these transmissions in these cars out for something else at stock power levels. You need to find a bench rebuilder somebody that rebuilds transmissions on the bench. Take them your 4L60E and tell them it's for your two-wheel drive suburban that your take your kids to school with every day, If he asks if you ever tow with it, say "sure sometimes". He'll rebuild it just fine and then you can take it home, put whatever stall converter you want in front of it and then put it back in And go back to drag racing with it, It will probably last 10 years. Trust me, If you go in there and tell them you're going to do all kinds of crazy s*** with it. You're never going to have a working transmission and you're going to end up trying to swap in something that's really going to cause more problems than it solves. Think about it. Look how many idiots are out there with their 4x4 Chevy trucks crashing into s*** all over the place all the time everywhere day after day. What transmission is in there? What transmission is that again?

 

StockA4.. I have to wonder if you are serious or just horsing around.. I hope that many people reading this are not following your advice as you could potentially be putting them in a bad situation. And who will get blamed when some young DUMB punk in an F-body throws that "stock" trans in a poorly tuned, hopped up car and destroys it? The builder.. that's who. It is NOT the builders fault if you lie to them about the intended usage. It is NOT the builders fault if it fails because the broke azz punk f-body owner could not afford to match the gearing to the tire size, tune it properly, put correct stall speed converter in it, put a big enough trans cooler in it to control the heat.. the builder will still get blamed even though it is not his fault. I am a builder and no, we will NOT sell 4L60E's to F-body owners. Hard rule. For the reasons I listed above. I learned a fast lesson after being blamed for the "Bubba racer" mentality early on. You just can't sell to people that have NO CLUE how to properly install a transmission, NO CLUE how to properly tune the transmission, NO CLUE how to build a COMPLRTE driveline with all parts and components complementing each other. In short... when a trans fails you need to look at the entire vehicle from front to back and verify that nothing else contributed to the trans failing. It's a SYSTEM.. not just random mis-matched components thrown together as many financially challenged f-body owners attempt.

On all stock vehicles, you want to know what the top 5 killers of the 3rd and 4th clutch pack are? 1. Problems with the MAF. 2. Problems with the TPS. 3. Engine misfire. 4. Problems with MAP sensor. 5. Brake pedal circuit or switch. How many of your average F body owners are going to pull all codes and data BEFORE pulling the trans? That #is going to be very low. Now, young punk-referred to as YP going forward.. YP has a bad MAF because his racing "bubba" friend told him to discreen it.. tranny burns up 3rd and 4th.. YP takes it to builder for a bench build.. YP puts it back in upside down, backwards, and fills it with brake fluid.. then immediately goes out in the street and boils the tires to the ground with zero break in time on the trans.. tranny is dead within 2 months.. who gets blamed??? You already know.. it will never be me getting that phone call from YP as he is on the side of the road. Posts like yours encouraging people to lie to their builder... you are costing some builder who has not figured out the "Bubba f-body" game yet-money. You are putting a builder, or shop, or company in a position to be financially responsible for some mouth breather who could afford a heads and cam swap... but NOTHING else matching that the trans needs to survive.. funny they never have the money to build the car RIGHT but they always find the money to build it a second time.. or they rape some other poor dude under the guise of a "warranty". Do better bro. Do better.

 

You know what's funny is I made a thread a few weeks back that was actually about real tech engine tech. You know camshafts. I tried to let everybody know that rebuilds these things that hey. There's a big difference within the stock cams. Even within the same part number. You know how many responses I got. You know how many people looked at it. Nobody gives a s*** nobody cares on here. It's like all these other guys coming on here telling us what their plans are, what they're going to put together. We give our inputs say hey. That's not a great looking combo that's not going to work like you think it will. Maybe you should switch this or that and they rip us a new one dude it just doesn't matter. I'm sorry having a bad day but you're right you nailed it on the head. The tune is number one reason these transmissions fail so I must have touched the nerve there when I suggested that a regular old 60E is good enough for a bourbon would do just fine behind your average Camaro as I'm sure you know it would. Did you know that one of my z28s has 228,000 mi on it on the original 4L60E?? That particular car also delivered pizza for 3 years and it's been autocrossing for 4 years. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the stock 4L60E. The problems begin when they have to be rebuilt.

 

Very well said, stockA4!
As you know, I myself am not a builder, but I sure know how frustrated you must feel when trying to spread good info that gets unheeded or ignored.
What you say above is pure common sense. But I guess it must not be that common anymore....

 

Yupp I was planning a 3600 stall. I had one in my lt1 formula and loved it. I went with tci but not sure if that’s who I’ll go with again. I haven’t really done any research on it yet. Just trying to save up a little money first before I get everything I need

 

I’ve seen idle videos of that cam. What do you think of it? Couldn’t really find any real world numbers on that cam. Sounds good tho

 

This, i can somewhat agree with, but more context is needed. You are still missing the biggest part of the equation.. when a vehicle comes to my shop with a burned up transmission the very first priority is figuring out WHY it failed. You don't just replace a burned up transmission. You diagnose the cause of failure, fix that if/when it is outside of the trans, then the last thing you do is fix the transmission. If you fail to identify and fix the REAL problem, you will simply destroy the new/rebuilt trans in short order.. these are the facts. And this is, in my opinion, why so many rebuilds fail, and some rebuilt transmissions in general get a bad rap. Typically when a rebuilt unit fails its because the trans INSTALLER failed to do his job properly. He FAILED to identify the root cause and instead just put another victim in place, and surprise! The next one fails as well. I have people calling me everyday asking for bench builds, or Carry outs. The 1 question I ask is-what killed the trans you are replacing? If they can't answer the question-we simply don't sell to them.. to sell to those people would mean damaging my own reputation through NO FAULT of my own. You see they will install the new trans and it will fail for the same reason the first one failed and the installer failed to identify, and fix the real issue.. but the builder gets blamed for the installers lack of skills, and ineptitude. That's how it goes, and it's a fools game that I don't play.

Big cams, ported heads, long tube headers, cold air intakes, ALL of these things are designed to make more horsepower and torque.. and yet a bone stock 4.8 has to have torque mmanagement to keep from killing the 60E.

There is nothing wrong with rebuilt transmissions, there simply are too many "installers" failing at their jobs.. not the builders fault. If you cant look at the entire system, and make every component work together due to lack of knowledge, or lack of funds, or laziness, or whatever.. thats not the builders fault. When your trans fails-whether its the stock one, or a rebuilt one, it is paramount that you figure out why it failed and fix EVERYTHING relative to transmission operation.

The only thing in your post I did not care for was you telling people to be dishonest with their builder.. that dishonesty can cost a business owner thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost revenue, and harm his reputation.

 

The thread got a lot of views and reads. Not a lot of stock rebuilds going on, and those that are stock, are likely using the cam that came out of the engine. 99.9% of guys having to purchase a new cam will simply go with some sort of a performance camshaft. Don’t take it personally.

 

Let’s try to keep this on topic gents. Maybe start a thread over in the Auto Trans section about this topic, but I’d imagine that there are already many over there just like this.

 

I think you should go with a wider split If I was putting together another 5.7L 4000 stall 3.73 car on a 26" I would do the comp cams drift cam 233/243 114+5 .575 or .541 lift LS6 springs and hardened 7.450" pushrods. I'd set the rev limiter at 7200 and try to get it to shift around 68-6900

 

Gary, you said it all. If some of these "knuckledraggers" build a motor to increase power by, say 25%, or more, and bolt it back on a 75,000 mile stock, untuned trans, I can't imagine what they're thinking. Also, some guys who "think" they're tuners......No, they aren't. Sure, the above combo might go another 25,000 miles, depending on how crazy the owner is. As many here know, I have a stock internals 4L60E in a C5. It has had at least 600chp beating on it, 2 different 427s, for the last 80,000 miles, 140,000 total. Never been down. All I've done is 1 fluid/filter change@100,000 miles. Thats it. Oh, and I'm also running a 3,200 stall Yank converter, too. My tuner has obviously done a Helluva good job. 30,000 of those miles were with 315-30-18 Michelin PS2s. They were also 1" smaller diameter than stock, which the trans "sees" as being easier to turn than the larger diameter OEM tires. FWIW....

 

Just realized my previous post wasn't much help on cam selection. 2nd post in this thread is accurate. I'd go at least the 228R-If you're building mainly for dig and roll. If you're definitely going with at least a 3.73 gear, I'd go at least one step beyond the 228R, and a Yank 3,000-3,200 stall converter. Best of luck.....

 

i voted that cam cause its better than the 228 but not as max effort as your bigger choices. put it in a friends ls1 with a yank ss3600 and it drives great power comes on quick and has a good usable power band. no it wont make as much peak power as the larger cams you posted, however itll drive better and be alota fun for a mostly street car, if you need more uuummph after that just spray it with 100 shot nitrous kit and youll never care that you picked the (smaller cam). just an opinion.