How do i get an adjustable cam gear????

[accordmanracing]

I want an adjustable cam gear for my 88 accord lxi but the thread exploded and now makes no sense, please help! I need one really bad. Color not a problem

[BITESIZE]

Roach has one for sale. It's an inside joke too. But hit him up.

[2ndGenGuy]

Yeah 87roach will sell you his. Hahahhaha!

[BITESIZE]

Yeah 87roach will sell you his. Hahahhaha!

lmao

[87roach]

Haha, god damn huh.

Not sure if I can actually recommend you buying one, but hey if you want to go for it.

Also, mine is not for sale at the moment.

[ghettogeddy]

Haha, god damn huh.

Not sure if I can actually recommend you buying one, but hey if you want to go for it.

Also, mine is not for sale at the moment.

what whats wrong with them mine runs fine

[2ndGenGuy]

You LOSE horsepower if you adjust it. It might help an engine that has had the head and block decked down quite a bit.

[ghettogeddy]

You LOSE horsepower if you adjust it. It might help an engine that has had the head and block decked down quite a bit.

mine seems fine

[BITESIZE]

The dyno don't lie!

[accordmanracing]

This ending up like the last cam gear thread and I'm not joking about needing one hahahahahahahahahahaha! my head and deck are milled down and need to reposition the cam for top dead center. it sits about one tooth out of position no matter which way i adjust the factory cam gear, for and aft. I'm running megasquirt on my car and believe it is messing up my ignition timing. please help. yes the 3gee runs on megasquirt!

[Rendon LX-i]

I agree...NOT on did roach lose power...even MESSY lost power im like damn. lucky mine was set at 0....it just looks cool or if your boost i may help...if you obd1. you can control your timming you dont need a adjustable cam gear. you lose over 20hp im like DAMN....DYnoJet didnt lie thats for sure.

[Rendon LX-i]

she dude...you should attend are next meet forsure?

[87roach]

Yea I did lose power, a lot.

I don't know if you really need it, like you say josh maybe for boost but other then that I'm not sure the advantage.

Oh well.. good to know.

[2ndGenGuy]

This ending up like the last cam gear thread and I'm not joking about needing one hahahahahahahahahahaha! my head and deck are milled down and need to reposition the cam for top dead center. it sits about one tooth out of position no matter which way i adjust the factory cam gear, for and aft. I'm running megasquirt on my car and believe it is messing up my ignition timing. please help. yes the 3gee runs on megasquirt!

That's rad dude. Cygnus is running an A20 Prelude on Megasquirt. You should post up a pic thread. If your head and deck are milled down that much, yeah you might need one. Did you check the for sale threads? There might be one in there. Usually someone is getting rid of theirs. :) That's about the only way you can get one is used through someone. There aren't any in production. You might be able to get one made, but it might cost a bit.

[BITESIZE]

Roach, I can't remember how much power you lost?

[nswst8]

I have a spare, PM me.

[turabaka]

when is bisimoto gonna actually release the cam gear they said they were going to release last month?

[MessyHonda]

yeah i lost almost 20whp when mine slipped and retarted the timing couple degrees...i set mine back at zero and i got better mpg on the way back...im back to around 29mpg

[Rendon LX-i]

The dyno told roach and messy they lost 20 at the wheels...im like PHUCK

[2oodoor]

operator error guys...
stop telling people you lose hp with a acg,:D when used properly that is simply not the case. If you have had your head shaved, have a cam other than stock, have modified pistons, or compression chamber., and yes decked block.. you can gain torque and hp as well as match those rpm curves to your final drive ratio according to desired purpose of the car.
As with any parts you put on your car that "increase" performance, that percentage of gain depends on other modifications. Another example is headers, they typically advertise 5 to 15 percent gains, well those gains are multiplied with other modifications, like if you had head P&P you would pick up more power with a better flowing exhaust over OEM with the same P&P mod. Hence 5 percent on a stock head, and up and over 20 percent on the modified head with the same header (not including the percentage gained by the head mod) note these are just example numbers to make my point.

[2drSE-i]

Not sure on the bisimoto cam gear. He said over two months ago that it would be next month.

[2ndGenGuy]

operator error guys...
stop telling people you lose hp with a acg,:D when used properly that is simply not the case. If you have had your head shaved, have a cam other than stock, have modified pistons, or compression chamber., and yes decked block.. you can gain torque and hp as well as match those rpm curves to your final drive ratio according to desired purpose of the car.
As with any parts you put on your car that "increase" performance, that percentage of gain depends on other modifications. Another example is headers, they typically advertise 5 to 15 percent gains, well those gains are multiplied with other modifications, like if you had head P&P you would pick up more power with a better flowing exhaust over OEM with the same P&P mod. Hence 5 percent on a stock head, and up and over 20 percent on the modified head with the same header (not including the percentage gained by the head mod) note these are just example numbers to make my point.

I think you're right. I think the question becomes, how much milling between the block and head is necessary before the cam gear is needed. Roach's car had headwork, some milling and a cam, IIRC. I mean he had a pretty decent mild build, 129whp = ~150bhp. And the cam gear was unnecessary...

[2oodoor]

I do not doubt roach's circumstances at all, but true ...what specifications would apply. My point is the statement acg are inefffective would not be true across the board.

[Rendon LX-i]

not needed if your obd1 since you can time it on the tune.....just a pretty dress up thingy

[turabaka]

not needed if your obd1 since you can time it on the tune.....just a pretty dress up thingy

doesn't obd1 only mess with the ignition timing. the cam gear is to adjust the cam timing, not ignition timing.

[2ndGenGuy]

not needed if your obd1 since you can time it on the tune.....just a pretty dress up thingy

You can't set your cam timing in the ECU, just the ignition timing. The cam gear adjusts cam timing, and that just happens to affect the ignition timing since the distributor is driven off the camshaft.

[Rendon LX-i]

umm...my buddy told me that since he has a civic thats turboed...but yet idk anything bout obd1..what i meant is its not vacum ran like me when im under boost theres no way to control the timing. with obd1 i its electronic so makes life easyer. but i get what you mean bro.

[2ndGenGuy]

No you're right. But we're talking about two different things. Cam timing, and ignition timing.

[2oodoor]

You can't set your cam timing in the ECU, just the ignition timing. The cam gear adjusts cam timing, and that just happens to affect the ignition timing since the distributor is driven off the camshaft.

significant that certain dyno operators know what they are doing when they tell you that 20 hp just disappeared when they moved the gear.... and didn't check the ign timing again or do any other tweak old school tuning at the same time. I just am wary of more modern tuners abilities with older cars. :rice: so let us be aware of the details when we hear of things like this.
:D

[Tomisimo]

I think you're right. I think the question becomes, how much milling between the block and head is necessary before the cam gear is needed. Roach's car had headwork, some milling and a cam, IIRC. I mean he had a pretty decent mild build, 129whp = ~150bhp. And the cam gear was unnecessary...

for each 1mm shaved you returd your timing bu 3 degrees. so in that case you need a ACG

[cygnus x-1]

Assuming your ignition timing is based on cam position (which should apply to everyone with a distributor of any kind) you MUST reset the ignition timing any time you mess with the cam gear. A few degrees difference in ignition timing can make a BIG difference in power output. OBD1 lets you map ignition timing electronically but it's still based on cam position.


So I totally missed this thread where Roach tested the ACG on a dyno. I need to find that.

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[cygnus x-1]

This ending up like the last cam gear thread and I'm not joking about needing one hahahahahahahahahahaha! my head and deck are milled down and need to reposition the cam for top dead center. it sits about one tooth out of position no matter which way i adjust the factory cam gear, for and aft. I'm running megasquirt on my car and believe it is messing up my ignition timing. please help. yes the 3gee runs on megasquirt!


Another squirted A20? Fantastic! Which version? How is your ignition setup? What does you timing map look like? Any other mods (cam, head work, etc.?) Tell me everything! :D
You need a crank fired ignition. It rocks the known universe. You can adjust the cam at will and not affect the ignition timing.

C|

[ArokASE88LXi]

Another squirted A20? Fantastic! Which version? How is your ignition setup? What does you timing map look like? Any other mods (cam, head work, etc.?) Tell me everything! :D
You need a crank fired ignition. It rocks the known universe. You can adjust the cam at will and not affect the ignition timing.

C|

Ok as i've hated carbs with a passion all my life (i'm only as old as my 3g ha ha we share a birthday!) mostly because i don't understand them and never want to. what is megasquirt? this is new to me

[Smeado]

Hell yeah Mega Squirt (or for carby folks like me Mega Jolt!). I second everything that Cygnus said. if you adjust your cam timing your going to mess up your ignition timing unless you have a Crank fired ignition (mega jolt... cough cough). if you have the CFI you can adjust the cam without having to adjust the ignition and it makes finding those last few ponies a lot easier. if you don't everytime you adjust the gear you will have to get out that old Strobe light and figure out your timing all over again.

Also if your looking into a MS setup talk to cygnus he makes a kick ass trigger wheel/sensor bracket setup for a fantastic price. It is the best mod for the A-series for the price I think.

Smeado

[Rendon LX-i]

well at the SPURR of the moment we didnt think bout that (MEGA JOLT JOL JOLT CAUGHT CAUGHT CAUGHT). plus we didnt have the time. we had alot of people behind us anywho. now we know.

[87roach]

Chris I didn't make a thread about it I just thought about it when we were at the dyno, asked the guy if it was ok and tried it out. I posted it in the other thread but I'll post it here too so you can looky.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a69/roach_cato/roach_dyno1.jpg

1st run was at 0 degrees, 2nd was 1 degree retarded, 3rd was 1 degree advanced, and 4th was normal again.

On the second run he didn't even finish it because it was just running crappy(as you can see on the sheet). You can see on the third(with the advance) it gives a bit more torque at the beginning but then just shoots down.. so I'm going to keep it at 0 heh.

[2ndGenGuy]

Just to note in this thread too, the ignition timing was not set back. So we adjusted the cam gear, and that advanced / retarded ignition and cam timing. If we had reset the ignition timing, we MIGHT have been able to get a couple more HP from that cam gear.

[cygnus x-1]

Ok as i've hated carbs with a passion all my life (i'm only as old as my 3g ha ha we share a birthday!) mostly because i don't understand them and never want to. what is megasquirt? this is new to me


Megasquirt is a universal stand alone fuel injection/ignition controller that can be adapted to run nearly any type of spark ignition engine, from single cylinder lawn mower engines up to big V12s. The unique thing about it is that it's totally open source in that all the electrical schematics and software source code are freely available. It is far cheaper than every other stand alone system out there and does nearly as much as most of them. It isn't a plug-and-play type thing where you can just install and go. It has to be custom wired, installed, and tuned for each vehicle. What this means though is that during the process you will learn more about how fuel injection works than you ever imagined possible. You can read all about it here:

http://www.megamanual.com/index.html

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[cygnus x-1]

Just to note in this thread too, the ignition timing was not set back. So we adjusted the cam gear, and that advanced / retarded ignition and cam timing. If we had reset the ignition timing, we MIGHT have been able to get a couple more HP from that cam gear.


Hmm. I have to say these results are really puzzling. In fact they don't even make sense to me. According to the numbers you had a nearly 40% power loss with the cam timing retarded by only 1 degree. That doesn't even seem possible. Some time back I tried adjusting my ACG by maybe 2 degrees (it was a long time ago) and it made almost no perceptible difference. And I can say for absolute certain that 1 degree of ignition timing in either direction will make no difference at all. I hate to be negative but something here just doesn't jive.

C|

[Rendon LX-i]

Something was wrong. 20hp loss damn man. i didnt even touch mine for the fact of that reason.

[2ndGenGuy]

Hmm. I have to say these results are really puzzling. In fact they don't even make sense to me. According to the numbers you had a nearly 40% power loss with the cam timing retarded by only 1 degree. That doesn't even seem possible. Some time back I tried adjusting my ACG by maybe 2 degrees (it was a long time ago) and it made almost no perceptible difference. And I can say for absolute certain that 1 degree of ignition timing in either direction will make no difference at all. I hate to be negative but something here just doesn't jive.

C|

Maybe a combination of both being off winds up compounding the problem? I don't see that as being negative, but trying to figure out what really is going on. I think we all jumped to conclusions on this way too quickly. I don't know how we're going to figure this out. Anybody wanna split an hour of dyno time? I have the cam gear, if you've got the car. :D

[2ndGenGuy]

Also, back on original topic here is a cam gear for sale right now:

http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?p=961105

[Tdurr]

Maybe a combination of both being off winds up compounding the problem? I don't see that as being negative, but trying to figure out what really is going on. I think we all jumped to conclusions on this way too quickly. I don't know how we're going to figure this out. Anybody wanna split an hour of dyno time? I have the cam gear, if you've got the car. :D

come down here and lets do it. :D

[Rendon LX-i]

k....john me and you well do it to my car to...idk with a big boost inplant well make a difference?

[cygnus x-1]

Maybe a combination of both being off winds up compounding the problem? I don't see that as being negative, but trying to figure out what really is going on. I think we all jumped to conclusions on this way too quickly. I don't know how we're going to figure this out. Anybody wanna split an hour of dyno time? I have the cam gear, if you've got the car. :D


I really should find some time to try it myself since I can datalog with the Megasquirt and get rough power figures. It's not especially repeatable though so it would be hard to draw solid conclusions.
Of course I should also just get my damn car dyno'd some day. Just too many other things to do right now.


One random thought I had... I'm thinking maybe whomever set the pulley read the marks wrong and actually set it to +/-8 degrees. The marks on that thing are a little strange and I can see how it would be easy to misinterpret them. If this doesn't make sense I could take some pictures to illustrate what I mean.


C|

[markmdz89hatch]

I really should find some time to try it myself since I can datalog with the Megasquirt and get rough power figures. It's not especially repeatable though so it would be hard to draw solid conclusions.
Of course I should also just get my damn car dyno'd some day. Just too many other things to do right now.


One random thought I had... I'm thinking maybe whomever set the pulley read the marks wrong and actually set it to +/-8 degrees. The marks on that thing are a little strange and I can see how it would be easy to misinterpret them. If this doesn't make sense I could take some pictures to illustrate what I mean.


C|

Yes, please snap those pics as i'm interested in seeing what you mean with that. I have yet to install my acg and want to make sure I know exactly how the markings are setup.

[cygnus x-1]

Ok, well it isn't quite like I was remembering it (not as confusing) but it might still be possible to get it wrong. So here is a picture of the pulley adjusted to 0 degrees.


http://bluegreenlabs.com/Prelude/Engine-build/ACP-0d.jpg



It's a little hard to see but if you look at the "0" mark on the outer
ring, you can see the corresponding center inner mark that I've colored in green. I should have used a darker color but that's the only marker I had handy. But anyway, as I said, this is at 0 degrees.



This next one is the pulley set at 1 degree advanced:

http://bluegreenlabs.com/Prelude/Engine-build/ACP-1dAdv.jpg



Notice that the inner green center mark is NOT lined up with the 1 degree mark on the outer ring. The next mark over on the inner ring however is lined up with the 1 degree mark. To get to 2 degrees advanced you would move the inner ring so that the "2nd over" inner mark (from the green mark) lines up with the 2 degree mark on the advanced side of the outer ring. Other setting would follow the same pattern. 4 degrees advanced would be the "4th over" inner mark from the green mark would line up with the 4 degree outer mark on the advanced side.


Here is a picture of the pulley set to 1 degree retarded:

http://bluegreenlabs.com/Prelude/Engine-build/ACP-1dRet.jpg


See how the "1st over" inner mark lines up with the 1 degree outer mark on the retarded side.





Now here's the confusing part. If you were to line up the inner green center mark with the 1 degree outer mark here is what it would look like:

http://bluegreenlabs.com/Prelude/Engine-build/ACP-9dAdv.jpg


While this might look like the proper setting for 1 degree advanced it is actually 9 degrees advanced and not 1 degree. The "9th over" inner mark is lined up with the 9 degree outer mark. Running the engine with the pulley adjusted like this is essentially like having the cam pulley 1 timing belt tooth off from the crank. It would probably run but it would run like shit. I didn't bother trying to start it like this because I know it would run like shit. :)

I did however drive around for a few days with the pulley adjusted at 2 degrees advanced. The difference was very small and if someone had adjusted it without me knowing I might not have even noticed. It kinda felt like maybe lower RPMs were a tiny bit stronger, and it sounded a little different. That's really about all I can say. I took some datalogs with the Megasquirt and didn't see anything unusual there either. To really know if there was a change I think you would need to do several dyno pulls with each setup and average the results to see if the averages are significantly different.


C|

[markmdz89hatch]

thanks for posting that up Chris. Yeah, right after you had posted the original 'it could be confusing' post, I went straight to my stockpile of parts and looked at my gear and figured this is what you meant by it. Good write up, I think I'll grab that post and sticky a thread for it. Thanks again.

[88Accord-DX]

I have one that was never installed. :wave:

[2ndGenGuy]

Yeah that's a good write up. Someone was mentioning to me that you had to move the thing through it's full range to advance it 1 degree. It didn't make any sense to me, as I played with it, I saw it as the way you had it set up. But now I see where the confusion could be. I wonder if that's not what happened on the dyno...

[Rendon LX-i]

umm...instresting chris. I always taught you would have to move the 0 mark to the 1 degree setting. man all along i could of set it at 9adavnce which is a no no for me when boosting LOL. thanks man

[Strugglebucket]

It should be obvious how to do it since there are multiple, corresponding marks on both the outer and inner sections. I like the fact that they did it this way since it makes it easier to see your setting. If there was only a single mark on the inner section to index with, then the outer marks would all be bunched up really close to each other in a very small area.

BTW, looks like the Chicago climate does not much care for 12.9 grade bolts:eek5:

[MessyHonda]

yup thats the way to advance it...it was just hard to see when the car was on the dyno with little to no light

[87roach]

umm...instresting chris. I always taught you would have to move the 0 mark to the 1 degree setting. man all along i could of set it at 9adavnce which is a no no for me when boosting LOL. thanks man

This is what I thought too.. although there are just lines on mine and no numbers.

No wonder I got shitty results! haha fuck.

Thanks for showing us this!

[2drSE-i]

Lol, i always wondered why there was more than one mark on the inside lmao.

[Rendon LX-i]

kinda explains are ERROR at the dyno guys lol..o well...tell next time

[87roach]

Yea...

kinda sucks that our gears don't have the numbers though.

I want a retry at the dyno please :D

[2ndGenGuy]

Funny I would have thought the tuner shop would have known better... :Owned:

Bring your car down to Olympia again. We could pay for an hour of dyno time, and play with all sorts of fun stuff! :D

[cygnus x-1]

It should be obvious how to do it since there are multiple, corresponding marks on both the outer and inner sections. I like the fact that they did it this way since it makes it easier to see your setting. If there was only a single mark on the inner section to index with, then the outer marks would all be bunched up really close to each other in a very small area.


If you know how to read a vernier style caliper it will be totally obvious; it's the same thing. But if you haven't I can see how it might not make sense at first. What you described is exactly how vernier calipers work. But most are either dial or digital now.


BTW, looks like the Chicago climate does not much care for 12.9 grade bolts:eek5:[/quote]


Yeah. All the engine bolts look like that now. When I rebuilt the engine I used a wire wheel to clean off the bolt heads. But it also cleaned off the plating so they all have surface rust on them now. I think those cam pulley bolts were black oxidized, which doesn't hold up well to humidity or even a hint of salt. Zinc plating is better. If I had the money I would replace them with stainless.

C|

[cygnus x-1]

This is what I thought too.. although there are just lines on mine and no numbers.

No wonder I got shitty results! haha fuck.

Thanks for showing us this!


No numbers? That's kinda lame. Did you get yours in the last group buy?

C|

[MessyHonda]

Yea...

kinda sucks that our gears don't have the numbers though.

I want a retry at the dyno please :D

yeah...i lost like 20hp too when mine slipped...lol...its ok as long as the valves dont hit the pistons

[87roach]

Yea it would be nice to play around with it, I would pay forsure. I want to be obd1 first though so that there are more options to play with :D