How much of a difference in the way your car drove, did going from +4 to +2 make? I'm trying to decide how to install mine. The guy who will be installing my cam says I should run it without any advance, and thunder racing says I should install it with +4 advance. Any opinions?

 

I've messed with cam timing on SBCs before. So I have a feel for what to expect. First, if the cam is too big/small, then the advance/retard adjustment doesn't make enough of a difference to correct it. Second, if you choose an optimum designed cam for your goals, then it should be installed "straight up". If it is not optimum and a little too much low-end biased then retard it 2 degrees. Too much high-end biased, advance it 2 degrees. Anything more, then I would reconsider the cam choice.

To be fair to the off-the-shelf cams, I can see why they are designed with 4 deg advanced. 2 degrees of advance will usually get eaten up in stock chain slop. The other 2 degrees is to help those guys that pick a little too big of cam than optimum.

I think highly of that 216 cam for a street/strip A4 setup. Should give a strong mid-range. To me I think you would be on the edge of needing to run headers with that cam. Just my opinion of course.

 

When I got my 2002 Camaro SS dyno, the only thing I had done with it was a 3200 stall, since than I put LT Pacesetter Headers and high flow cats on my car.Maybe it was on the high side because the dyno numbers are STD rather than SAE. I was told there was not that big of a differance.

 

I like the way you put that and I'm with you on this train of thought.