Power in numbers-the golden tenet. Everybody's got a little bit of power under the hood, but it's never enough. Unless you can smoke Titan rockets off the line or go through tires faster than a drift team you'll always find yourself searching for more. One way to unleash more ponies is with the use of adjustable cam gears. We lay down the fundamentals on the shadowy mystery known only as cam gears. We're jumping straight into how to install camshaft sprockets/cam gears, why you'd want to adjust them, the theory behind how they work, and why you'd want to buy a set in the first place.
Many of our readers are split into one of two camps. One side says, "I'm running boost to get big power, why would I need to mess with any cam stuff?" The other says, "I'm buying cams because I want to stay naturally aspirated, and I'm getting these Brand X gears because they look badass." Please, for your engine's sake, read a little further. There might be something useful in here that'll shed some light, no matter which camp you belong to. To get the definitive scoop on cam gear tech, we headed over to Skunk2 Racing in Norco, Calif., to check out a hands-on cam gear install.
The first thing to think about before buying any camshaft or valvetrain part is to understand exactly how that part is going to benefit your engine in the first place. A camshaft is, in essence, a mechanical method of controlling the opening and closing of intake and/or exhaust valves. The camshaft uses machined lobes to determine how much and how long a valve stays open relative to the piston's position within the cylinder. The how much and how long is exactly what determines the amount of air and fuel mixture that goes in and how much exhaust gas goes out, which affects both driveability and power.
Taking into consideration an average dual overhead cam (DOHC) engine, there are cams that take care of only the intake valves and there are cams for only the exhaust valves. Cam gears are the teethed sprockets bolted to the ends of the camshafts that are spun by either belts or chains from the crankshaft. Aftermarket cam gears are lightweight replacements for OEM pieces that allow adjustment of camshaft timing, i.e., the position of the camshaft relative to piston position.
The whole point of adjustable cam gears is to allow the user to put the camshafts into the optimum timing position. But what is optimum for your car? The answer is, it depends. Engine size, camshaft profile, performance modifications, any of these will affect the optimum position for your camshafts. If you pull your cylinder head and have it milled, you'll surely be interested in adjusting your cam timing back when you find out you're a few degrees off without having touched anything else. Even if your car is absolutely bone stock, right down to the floor mats, you can still benefit from the use of adjustable cam gears. Adjustable camshaft gears allow you to tweak the conservative factory settings for increased power and driveability. Adjustable cam gears also give the user the ability to shift peak power throughout the rpm range, a big plus if you are a low-end city driver, mid-range autocrosser, or high-rpm drag racer.