hey all.

Just to fill people in, I have a 3.9l EB (series one) Fairmont Ghia, got a podfilter, genie extractors, and a 2.5" sports exhaust.

It went pretty hard, and for a daily driver, I've been real happy with it, aside from the rust in the roof.

Anyway, I thought it would be a damn good idea to give it a little more kick, so I bought a second hand Wade stage 2 1004 grind cam (with 112LSA) from Fuzion.

Anyway, Voxace came down and helped me fit it. From the word go I was nothing but dissapointed with the cam.

It sounded beefier, and that made me feel all warm and fuzzy until I got behind the wheel. The loss of power that I felt was incredible.

I ran around with it all night (for about 130 odd kilometres) and it started feeling a little better.

I got home, unhooked the battery (to reset the ECU), and this evening plugged it back in again. Let it idle a bit, turned it off, let it idle again.

It sounds real nice, the idle goes up and down like a two dollar whore, and after more running, the car feels ALMOST as powerful as it did before I changed the bloody cam.

Any ideas what's wrong?

--Striker.

Did you knock any plug leads off in the process ?
Everything back in exactly as it came out ?
You fitted the proper shims ?
Did you cable tie the timing gear and chain together so it didn't move around while the cam was out ? Maybe your timing is out to buggery ?
My wade stage 2 ran fine the second I dropped it in.

You're the only person I know who can fit a straight though exhaust and not hear any difference, then install a cam and not feel any performance gain.
I think the answer is quite obvious, either you or your car sucks, and alot of people with similar cars have made good gains from the mods you list...
haha

Your Cam timing could be one Tooth out.

if you think it is going notably worse than before the Cam install.

Go over every thing you did and double check it.

Plug leads were tagged, then removed (also checked the plugs while we were at it). Will re-check leads.

Proper shims were fitted, and yeah, I cable tied the timing gear.

It's possible the timing is out, but if so, it should have also adversely affected the stock cam.

The exhaust is not a straight through, and the lack of noise improvement with was due to a collapsed catalytic converter, and as soon as that was replaced, it sounded good.

--Striker.

Last edited by Striker on Sun Nov 14, 2004 8:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Since the ECU reset, I would say performance is back to what it was with the old cam. Can't see any improvement though.

Will check stuff over on Wednesday, when I have more time off.

--Striker.

did you put a few more degrees timming advance on the dizzy?

i fiited one to my EF and the thing bloody screams now.
the only problem i had was the timming chain and guides are stuffed and are very noisey since the new cam went in.

No, didn't advance the timing. All I did was swap cam, insert shims, repair lifters.

Wasn't aware the timing would need to be advanced.

Is that a standard thing to do? How far do you need to advance it?

--Striker.

If you are having a problem with our cam, contact us direct keith@wadecams.com or telephone 03 9568 0333.

We will do our utmost to help you.

Cheers

Chris
The team at Wade Cams

Hey tensixty6, will there be another thread where we can ask you questions about your cam grinds and stuff???

Back on topic, the chain was cable tied onto the sprocket, and when I bunged the new cam in Striker held the sprocket in place so that we didn't lose pressure on the tensioner. So we definately didn't stuff up the cam timing or anything.

thats odd
i mean ... the car it came out of went fairly well ... everyone knows that pierres car is no slouch (contrary to certain dyno runs)

I would suggest to check your timing. I reset mine to zero, as it was slightly retarded, and it made a world of difference. I have a Crow cam in, and it didn't feel good. To do this properly, you need to remove the intake horn, so you don't get parralax errors (look it up) when you view the timing marks.

I also run gas, and I am thinking of advancing the timing a bit beyond zero to start with.

If your talking about ignition - we had the timing light on it, slightly advanced...

The best thing to do is talk to us direct. I don't always have the time to check the forum. If you go to our website www.wadecams.com which we have just updated, you can post questions directly from the contact page. The form that you fill in is sent to us as an email using "Scripthost Form2Mail". It's not as complicated as it sounds.

Cheers

Chris
For the Team at Wade Cams

strange, pretty much what hyena said regarding the cam

i never had a problem with it, and still had plenty of power with my snapped timing chain guides too! lol... something seroiusly wrong there!

as wade offered, have a chat to them or take it to Crescent Motors or your local mechanic/performance place to tune it/or see whats going on if your still unsure man ..

everyone else with the cam has had unbelievably happy results with sound/power/feel, idle is a bit ruff but not that rough as your saying? .. best to get someone mechanical minded to check it out a bit more i guess?