Hey everybody, just seeing if anybody has a jmm dev4 cam and adjustable timing gear fitted in their falcons, and what results they got from doing this upgrade?
Just got mine today and going in tuesday,
Thanks in advance

I've got a JMM cam - it's not one of the off the shelf Dev ones as they had none available when I wanted it. Brendan has said it's something similar to Dev 4. I fitted it and set it up with an adjustable cam gear per JMM's instructions - ie. 0.039" @ TDC No.1 Inlet and was VERY happy with it's performance!.

At that stage the ED was auto and I had already tried a Crow cam (I think 2222525) as well as EDXR6, EF std and EFXR6 cams (it had Broadband manifold - but I was having to manually switch it at that time - EL ECU and proper BBM wiring came a few months later).

The immediate increase in performance when I drove it out of the shed was nothing short of amazing - it made all the other work I'd already done look like nothing. It was damned near like I'd put a V8 in it. Putting it in my EF has been the same.

As I said, I later fitted an EL ECU and got the BBM switching properly as well as knock sensor all up and running - and a couple of years later I converted it to manual. In total that cam spent something like 10 years in the ED - during which time we did several very enjoyable trips from WA to Queensland (four 10 to 12 hour days each way). With the car loaded so heavily it was dragging on the stops, it would cruise effortlessly at 130 and still be able to overtake easily if I wanted to (Bilsteins meant it was driveable like that too). It would cruise at higher speed if I wanted to but servos were too far apart to be able to do that - economy up to 130 or so was excellent but above that it used to start to get thirsty.

As far as the cam's characteristics go - it has great torque AND power from just under 2000 right thru to rev limit but isn't gutless in the very bottom end either. It revs cleanly and quickly and works really well with the factory ECU - hard to describe, but you can TELL it's happy and there are no dead spots. Normal driving means just lightly touching the accelerator and fuel economy is noticeably better than with a std cam.

I've put that cam in my EF Gli work car now - and with lightly ported head and hi stall converter but with stock as a rock factory exhaust and fitted without an adjustable cam gear it's made the EF able to just about hold it's own against a std non-vct AUIII XR6 (I regularly drive one of those as well) - ie. it's better than the XR6 in the bottom end and midrange - is much better to drive in traffic - but doesn't go quite as hard from 3500 up - tho it's got noticeably more torque across the board.

Wow sounds great, thanks heaps for all the info- getting keen to see how it goes when its in....

I'll be keen to hear how it goes as well - fingers crossed you see the same sort of immediate improvement I've seen!

As a matter of interest, did you actually speak to JMM about the cam? - ie. was it supplied with extra shims and instructions - and what did they say about it behaving with the ECU (especially at idle)?

yep they said its fine with the stock ecu and springs, but a flash tune would see it go a bit better but thats a while down the track yet, came with adjustable timing gear (sprockets) and extra shims plus all the instructions etc, getting my mech to fit it though incase something goes wrong, id rather them stuff it than me!

Jmm (brendan) also said they cant guarantee a power increase but advised of about a 10rwkw peak increase and much better all round driveability.....not to happy with the miserable performance the au puts out so far, im guessing because of the long 4 speed and diff gears...although it is great as a work ute for pulling weight etc, but definately not very sporty.

Thanks for your help

Cool - I was a little concerned you'd picked it up second hand.

As far as performance with the auto goes - I know your pain - with my ED I went to 3.45 diff but noticed stuff all difference - should have gone to at least 3.7 or 3.9

I ended up converting the ED to manual which was fun I suppose but the HD clutch I had in it was a leg buster and I went thru all the crap with firewall spiggot tearing out etc. etc.

In the EF - with std 3.08 diff - I had a TCI "HD XR6" Stall Converter fitted (2500-3000 stall) and it has transformed the car. The torque converter was about $350 off eBay and fitting was $450 by a trans shop. Unfortunately they picked up that my S5 was stuffed so that cost another $500. I wish I had simply done the same to my ED in the first place!!

Thanks for all the info, it all goes ahead on tuesday so getting pretty pumped, will post up how it goes, i think a hi stall convert is next on the list of things to do, pretty pricey but from what i can see....

The manual still trumps auto inasmuch as you can lite up the tyres by being brutal and slipping the clutch etc. (not that I was even able to do that with the very heavy duty on/off clutch I had) - but as far as tractable acceleration the new torque converter has made the car as quick off the line as I was ever able to be with the manual box in my ED - and once you're rolling it behaves very much LIKE a manual! - which is odd as theoretically the hi-stall converter should be "slushier" - but it absolutely ISN'T.

I haven't really tried just jumping on the gas - I haven't needed to in traffic - up here you get rage response if you dare to try accelerating away from lights significantly faster than the rest of traffic - and I haven't found myself with the road to myself or bothered to find somewhere to try it out. I'm making lots of smug a***hole watch their mirrors myself these days - but there's a difference between staying locked at 3 to 4 carlengths behind someone no matter how hard they accelerate (which is what I do) and being left for dead initially then rushing right up someone's a rse at insane speed once they've reached 70, 90 or 110 and STOPPED accelerating and then following so dangerously close that they have no choice but to turn off or pull over (which is what other Cairns drivers do).

Up here the crazy Cairns driver attitude is: MUST get in front - and if you can't: then tailgate! - and if someone can out accelerate you then nothing changes - just gotta catch em first!!... The traffic up here travels in these tight, borderline violent knots. And if there's a cop car in sight then the d***heads all travel at 40 - it's PATHETIC!

Last edited by Greenmachine on Wed Jun 01, 2011 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ahahahahaha.

sounds like everyone runs around with them stickers on thier mirrors saying " objects in this mirror are losing"

Here's the comment by a member called Jonbays on another forum sometime in 2006 about fitting a hi-stall converter. I only just found this comment so am really impressed at the fact his experience so closely matched my own more recent one - except he wasn't getting chased down and nearly run off the road if he dared to outpace the other traffic - crazy, crazy cairns drivers... This fellow also did a lot of messing about with Dev3HL and Dev5 and his experience with those matches my own with my JMM cam. He tried a Crow cam and found it to idle nasty and chew fuel as well as making less power than either JMM cam - my experience with a Crow cam was the same.

"OK I bit the bullet and got TCI to build me a high stall converter approx 500rpm higher stall for $350, got a swann trans cooler $160 and get it all fitted for $200.

After a few day now normal driving is 100% fine. Lock up still works. idle creep is less but ok, normal driving slightly more throttle and revs are used on light cruise but nothing bad. The tach sits more around 2500rpm than 2000rpm now.

The std converter stalled up at 2000rpm on the brake. The high stall goes to 2500rpm and then I lose traction and it just does a standstill burnout. The hi stall will flash up to 3000rpm on a flat chat take off without stalling it up.

stock converter the take off was always leisurely 0-40kmh always felt slow and the difference between full trottle and half throttle to this speed was almost nothing.

Now the take off is dramaticly different i would say my 2.35 60' will be 2.10's now honestly. It feels so much better you wonder why ford nobbled the falcon with a huge first gear and low stall.

I am finding very few cars even try me off the lights now as its so clear in the first 10 feet they are being left behind.

I Like it a LOT"

Got the cam done today, still have to run it in for 100km as recommended but i have noticed so far a deeper tone, slighty lumpier and better torque up to 2000rpm, i havnt redlined it yet or taken it over 4200rpm but all round perf has improved, no where near as much as i had hoped but still better...

See how it goes - I hope I didn't build your expectations too much! Did Brendan make any comment specifically about how the AU would take to the cam? - I didn't say anything before but I was under the impression that AU's were very funny about engine mods so was mildly surprised JMM had a cam for AU. If anyone COULD manage it then it would be them - and maybe adaptation is a big part of it.

For what it's worth, with the ED I always found performance improved whenever the computer was cleared - so periodically disconnecting the battery - particularly when the weather changed - was a pretty much required thing to do - but with the EF the performance definitely improves as time goes by and disconnecting the battery takes it backward - so evidently EECV does work a bit differently to EECIV.

Hi again, seemed to drive a bit better today, maybe taking the computer time to settle in? Pricing up high stall tc tomorrow.... Thanks for all the help

My experience with a high-stall is the same as Jonbays (quoted by Greenmachine) above. Cost less than $300 to have the factory convertor on my EF XR6 high-stalled (already out of the car). The launches are soooooo much better, but lost very little in fuel economy, and lock-up in unaffected so cruises beautifully. At low revs, it shifts like a drag car - the revs hardly drop on the upchange. A highly recommended cost-effective remedy for the tall first gear.

Like detailingau2, been thinking about getting an adjustable cam gear for the EF. I've reground the XR6 cam one step hotter, and am happy with the performance. Can I gain much with an adjustable cam gear? Or does it just move the torque peak up or down the revs?

I experimented a fair bit with the adjustable gear in my ED. Overall to be honest I found that the best place to have it set WAS indeed the specified correct timing.

Moving it around made noticeable shifts in how the power came thru - ie. advancing favoured the bottom end and retarding favoured the top end - but I personally felt that the loss at the other end never justified the gain.

Talking about my cam - so this might not necessarily relate to any one elses - I found that the amount of improvement possible in the bottom end by advancing was very limited and at the same time it really knocked the poop out of the top - whereas the amount of improvement possible in the top end by retarding was much better and it had a lot less impact (strangely enough) on the bottom end - tho there WAS an impact.

I definitely found overall maximum performance was reduced whenever I advanced it (dead top end meant severely limited best power of course) - and keeping in mind this cam is already VERY strong in the range from 4000 thru to redline anyway, altho there was a decent improvement possible from 3500 onward, the loss of bottom end with auto and std converter just didn't make it useful to me.

So in short: trying out late timing along with a hi stall converter or manual box and/or low diff ratio MIGHT be worthwhile - but I'd strongly suspect attempting to get a gain that's worthwhile in any way thru advancing will be a waste of time.