mykizism

im thinking about blowing my money on some cams for fun.

and on this forum i havent read to much about what cams are the best for the maxima or if the cams are really worth it.. i was wondering for any of people out here have had any experience's with cams if they are worth my cash flow.

i was looking at this site http://www.z31.com/cams.shtml

and was getting lost with the lift in inches's whats the differences between the lift duration? is higher more power? or is lower more power?

is there an inbetween number that works best or what?

also im not willing to spend 400 dollars on the JWT cams or anything above that just around a couple hundred of bucks.

while im at it i should tell you guys what mods i have to see if cams are worth getting.
i have ypipe,exhause,intake,udp

Nismo87SE

Do you realise you have to either unbolt the engine and raise it about 1ft or remove both cylinder heads to install cams. I had the ISKY 262 cams in my 87 maxima and I seen a NA Z dyno his car with the same cams/mods as I did. Be prepaired to spend around $1k to get the cams installed. Don't forget you will need new lifters, timing belt/tensioner, camshaft and front crankshaft oil seals. Generally speaking the cam with more lift and duration should make more power. However with more lift/duration comes more midrange-toppend power, so given the choice between grinds the higher one will have less low speed driveability. IMHO if you do install cams might as well get some headwork done since the heads have to come off. If I were you I'd buy an extra set of heads to get worked on so your car have downtime. But the cam install can be a DIY, just take your time and be very careful. I messed up my car when I pulled the heads to fix the broken exhaust studs (BTW replace these too if the heads are pulled or if you get extra ones). As of now we lack sufficent dyno info on cams, I'm only aware of 1 case where a car was dynoed before and after cams. This was on a 86 na Z31, He had JWT stage II cams installed and gained 12hp at the peak but it shifted the powerband higher about 400-500rpm. I recommend that if you really want cams to get the car baseline dynoed before hand. To find the nearest dyno center to you follow this link http://www.dynojet.com/lauto.shtml. Also the cams/ecu will need about 2-3 weeks to properly adjust to each other. When you do dyno try using different base ignition timing settings like 13, 15, 17, 19*BTDC. That way you can get a custom tuned ECU (in case you didn't know JWT offers a different ECU for S3/S4/C2/C3 cams for the SE-R owners). I'm betting the JWT or anyone else's cams weren't dyno tuned yet so JWT doesn't offer a separate program for the cams. But if I had to choose a regrind I'd go for the Motorsport Auto 270 grind. Its more agressive than the 260 grind but not as wild as the 280 grind. The 280 grind would require an ecu reprogram to idle correctly and help low speed driveability. You didn't mention if you are auto or 5spd. If you are auto you should get a high stall convertor. Otherwise your holeshot will suck with cams but the passing power and toppend will kick ***.

94Max

Wow, why so much work & $$$? New cams, obviously. New lifters, OK. But why new cam belt, tensioner & crankshaft seals? Guess I'd better go read the shop manual on cam removal/replacement. My ignorant opinion would have been that this is a pretty simple swap.

Can someone tell me the original lift and duration specs for a '94 VG cam?

Regards, Kirk

Nismo87SE

Well unless these thing were very recently replaced why not do it? Its only an extra $70 tops to give you peace of mind. All it takes is for the belt to snap and kill your valves/pistons. When installing new cams why use the old oil seals, that would just create an oil leak so you'd have to pull the belt anyway to replace the seal. Its just easier and way more convenint (sp?) to replace everything during a camshaft install. Actually the swap would be alot easier if our cams were able to lift out of the heads rather than slide out. But since they slide out the front you need either 2ft clearance between the front timing cover or to pull the heads. In theory if you were to unbolt the engine/tranny mounts and pull both drive axles there might be enough slack in the wire harness to tilt the timing belt end of the engine enough to slide them out. I didn't have an engine hoist so that method was out of the question. That is why I reccomend getting a spare set of heads, you could get the heads ported, replace all the exhaust/intake manifold studs 100x easier, install the cams, check and/or replace the valve springs (mine had 220k miles when I installed cams on my engine, which caused valve float and destroyed my #2 piston, exhaust valve and rocker arm). Besides without a new timing belt how are you going to line up the camshafts + crankshaft @ TDC if you can't see the white lines on the T-belt? The specs on the 3rd gen VG cams I believe are 0.392 lift and 248* duration.

94Max

Ahhh, there y'go - cams slide out vs. lift out. Like I said - "my ignorant opinion"

Yep, getting a spare set of heads & prepping them does sound like an attractive alternative. Unless you can stand the downtime, or were coming apart for some other reason anyway - overhaul, etc.