Which Cams?

[Lightning Coupé]

Alright folks, I need some advice on cams. My cars developed a bit of a noisey chain even though its an 03 plate and well out of the effected range, but I'm not taking any chances. A freind who works for vauxhall has offered to do the job with me in January (top bloke), but sugested that as I was planning on doing the cams in the near future I should thro them in whilst we're doing the chain, probably no more than 10-20 minutes extra work. Top bannana!

So, I need some cams come early January but which ones to go for? I was kinda set on the piper cams as I have a spare set to send away, especially after the results that zaffman had on the RR day and Vockys recomendations. But heres the confusion, I downloaded the piper products cataloge and it only specifies 260 degree fast road cams for the vx220 / astra 2.2. I'm sure I read that you had 270 degree cams zafman, vocky? could you or anyone else confirm what exactly I should be getting, do they make 270 degree cams on special request, or have I got it wrong and your all running the 260 degree ones?

Also, what other options do I realistically have? I'm not going to cournteys and spending best part of a grand on the shrick jobbies no matter how good they are, for a start it looks like thats the price of the parts alone, not fitting, for which it says "some" head machining is needed, and that means head off and all the associated costs.

Only other option I can think of is Dbilas cams, about £440 from Regal, cant find anything on there website, but on the dbilas website they intrestingly specifly 156 degrees for fast road and 264 degrees for "sport" which kinda makes me think 270 mentioned earlyer is a bit on the long side?

Either way, Your thoughts and experiances would be most appreciated so I can get them quick before xmas shutdown.

Thanks

 

[vocky]

the term '270' is a brand name

they are infact 266 degree, remember the standard are 244 !

have your spare cams got the hexagon drive hole on the inlet cam ?

 

[Lightning Coupé]

Ah, that explains it! Thanks Vocky. TBH the spare cams I'm gonna send away are still at my mates house, they came out of his astra coupe when he fitted all his dbilas gear, so I dont know if they have a hex? is that for the power stearing pump on a vectra? Whatever they have, i'm assuming they will fit straight back into another coupe. Am I right?

 

[vocky]

all z22se cams fit every z22se engine, it's just the vectra has a hex drive in the end of the inlet cam

I want to swap the heads between my vx and the vec, so need a standard vec inlet cam or I can make a hex drive in the vx cam

so if you had a vec inlet cam I might have been able to do a swap cheers..

never mind, I will keep looking

 

[JohnnyN]

The Schrick cams from Courtenays are about £800 supplied. These come with double valve springs and the collets. There is a need for extra machining on the head too which as you've said will incure extra costs. I paid £1650 for the Courtenay cam package which included the extra head machining, the machining on the inlet cam and the labour.

I have been extremely happy with the results so far since having the cams done. I've only done about 900 miles since having them fitted but I need to get about 3000 miles on the head before I start seeing bigger bhp gains. The car itself feels very strong throughout the rev range and is at its best from 4000 onwards right upto 6500 rpm before it starts to dip off.

 

[Lightning Coupé]

Thanks for the review Johnny, I'm glad there as good as they say! I wish I had that much money to spend on her. But whilst I accept the shrik cams are vastly superiour, I just cant justify nearly 8 times the cost of the piper cams.