I was planning on getting the Crane 210/224 cam for my car along with 1.6rr's.
But there seems to be a lot of hype over the extreme ramps with the comp XE cams. There is also a lot of support for the Crane cam for stock heads. Would a custom grind 210/224 cam with XE style ramps make sense?

 

Imo, the cam is too small. You will wish you went bigger. Get anything with 218-230 on the intake to make the change worth it. I use my car just to tool around town in and I went too small myself.

 

if i could do it all over again i would get a custom grind cam the first time. Shelf grinds are just too generic and engines too unique.

 

the 210/224 is small, but it's the best fit for stock heads. The large exhaust of the cam fits stock heads well. There are many LT-1s running in the 11's with this cam, faster than large cam/head cars. It's due to the broad flat torque curve. The big cams have higher peak torque, but this small cam has clase to the average torque.

 

If you want a mild cam that sure will work. I am a big fan of mild cams and even my Mildest LT1 custom cams are more than that.

The 210/224 or a small cam is good if you don't want to tunr RPM and you have a small converter on a A4. Then it's AVERAGE power is decent for that. On a M6 or a4 with a 3500stall that you want to turn to 6500rpm you are going to get much more average power if you get a bigger grind or a custom cam. Just had a stock headed car get 350rwTQ from 3300-4800, with 350rwhp to boot and that would sure do better than a 320-330rwhp motor with 350rwtq.

Bret

 

Duration numbers are not the whole picture. The XE lobes on the Comp cams have alot more area "under the curve" than the Crane grinds. I wouldn't do the Crane IMO.

 

It's about matching the stock heads. the crane 210/224 is one of the best for this. It puts more power under the curve than almost all dyno sheets I've seen for other cams. Question I have is will grinding it with more extreme ramps will help it, what will it do to the characteristics of the cam?

 

If you like that cam then I would buy it as is and not try a modified version.

You may also want to check into the LPE 211 cam. Proven performer.

-Mindgame

 

I am pretty set on it, just wondering about modifying it? I'm just currious to how changing the ramps affect it.

 

Average torque is pretty meaningless since torque at different RPM's is not equally valuable for accelerating the car.
Now you're talkin'! I have the cam Bret is referring to above and it averages more than 340 RWHP between shiftpoints. Since anything less than that (the cams you're talking about would be a lot less) would make the car slower, I'd have to say it "matches" the stock heads pretty well. While your application is slightly different, I doubt you'll find cams as small as the ones you're talking about will be optimum unless you have other requirements that call for them (such as not wanting to spin the bottom end past 6K, etc).
Depending upon the rest of your setup, the XE lobes will likely force you to shift earlier. This may or may not mean less area under the curve even if the peak numbers are slightly better. Predicting that is the hard part. I know I couldn't do it. That's why I hired a Pro.

 

Jon A, I saw your post earlier about the setup Brett put together for. I am already in contact with him about possibly putting something similar together. Your setup looks great

 

Yeah Jon has some good points, the are under the curve where the motor runs is what is important. Beyond that the faster (higher RPM) that you turn the motor is going to help since you can stay in lower gears longer and get more multiplication of the power. My father (Old Stroker) and I look at it slightly different but it's esentially the same thing, he likes average TQ I want the most average HP in the RPM band that the motor will run. So if you turn the motor higher you can go faster. It's simple but that's the main point.

Now the camshaft has a big deal to do with where the power occurs and how much is in the RPM band your motor needs to run in. With a 3500stall and a A4 that you shift at around 6500rpm, you have to look at each gear. 1st has the largest spread 3500-6500, then 2nd has 4000-6500 and so on. So getting a camshaft that focuses on below 3500 is pointless because the motor never sees that at WOT. The reason I'm not sure this cam is right for you is because the 210/224 is about two steps smaller than the cam Jon has in his car, and that one makes the perfect TQ curve for your application. Beyond that if a cam that works in a M6 in 6th gear with a 4.10 gear compares to a A4 in 4th gear with a 3.23 because you would have essentially the same RPM at a given mph.

Now I am one to admit that proven stuff is not a bad thing, I think that proven concepts and theories are a better thing to look at than coping a old setup. Darwin's theory applies to racing as much as it does evolution. The better faster parts and setups will take over the slower old school ones. That's why even in F1 when you take out Turbos, pull displacement away, change the tires etc... the cars still go faster today then they did 10 years ago or even a year ago. If we stayed with the old school setups we would have cars with 426 Hemis in them that stock put down 315rwhp, where now we have a 346cube stock ZO6 putting down 370rwhp.

Now as for the XE lobes. A more aggressive lobe or a lobe that has more area or lift for the .050 duration number means that you need more spring to control the valve and the lifter. In that case now you have added pressure which will cause you to need stiffer parts to prevent valvetrain deflection because that will also limit your max RPM with the valvetrain. In the case of stock heads you can't get too much spring in there with the parts that are given. Our cam setups are not the cheapest but are ment to work with what's there in the most economical way possible. If you want extremely aggressive lobes and high RPM then you have to get into even better parts than what we are running in a setup like Jon's and that just adds more money to the equation.

Bret