[White98LS]

Okay, so here's the situation: I have an LS w/just an intake, springs and shocks, and this spring/summer I'll have some, but not a lot of money to spend. I want good reliablity (needs to last for a few years) but I want more power than the couple HP here and there that bolt-ons alone would give me.

So I've pretty much decided on Crower Stage 2 cams, with stock springs and retainers (check that older post on these cams, it should be okay, I'm staying with the stock rev limit). I'm gonna use a Spoon head gasket which will bump my compression by 0.4 or so. Does this sound good?? Any other suggestions?

Plus another thing. If I do go for the cams, what should I get after that?
1. DC 4-2-1 for more flow
2. US ITR pistons to up compression from 9.6:1 (w/the Spoon gasket) to 10.8:1 (too high?). Good because I can do this while everything's all apart, but bad because puts a lot more stress on engine.
3. Cam gears for tunability

Any and all suggestions welcome. Remember, not a ton of money to spend, so "just get an entire Jun valvetrain" or "get a turbo" won't be much help. Thanks, guys!

 

[MRXMUFFIN]

are you going to have enough money for all of these goodies. Which cams are the crower stage 2? are they the 402s or 403s? if they are then that sounds like a good idea with some cam gears. i dont think 10.8:1 is too high as long as you have clearance for the valves. The DC 4-2-1 is also cool if you midrange power.

another suggestion is suspension. such as sway bars, strut bars, tie bar are great to have and so much fun to drive with. for around 800$ you can some good suspension bars on your car letting you do insanly speeds around turns.

 

[White98LS]

Thanks for the info. The Stage 2's are the 62403's. What I meant to ask was which of the three would be the best to do first? I can't afford 2 or 3 at once. You think the cam gears? That would also be cheapest.

Yes, I do want swaybars and suspension stuff, but right now engine stuff is top priority. I'm tired of having a virutally stock engine. Last summer I got Neuspeed SofSports (same rate as Sport, just lowers less) and Tokico blues. Not my dream setup, but good for how much I spent. Also puts camber right at 1 degree, which is just about perfect for street use. Little/no wear.

I'm happy in the handling department for now, but I need more than the 145 or so HP I have now at the crank. Plus with cams and headers/pistons/gears my car would be pretty sleeper, since it's an LS, only lowered 1", stock 14" alloys, stock exhaust and no nasty stickers or ricey lighted washer jets or anything.

 

[SpeedxRacer]

I would go with a set of header to free some flow of exhaust gases or unless you have acces to a dyno then get the cam gears to finely tune it to extract the most power. What route are you going for ? N/a? or F/I? IF your going for F/I just wait on the pistons and get aftermarket ones later. After that get yourself a set of header and a exhaust system to free some exhaust gas and you should be going pretty quick.

 

[DelHop]

The Crower 63402's would be ideal for your setup. However these cams make power past the stock redline.
I would consider matching these cams to the crower springs, and maybe Ti Retainers. This should be good to about 9500rpm safely.

You may also want to consider porting the bowls and chambers of the head, along with a 3angle valve job to promote more flow to complement the wilder cams.

As far as headgasket goes, dont waste your money on aftermarket gaskets. To raise the comp ratio with a thinner gasket, use 1 layer of the factory gasket. This would increase CR about 0.6 - 1.

Cam gears are a good idea, and so too is an exchast system 2.5" inner diameter, with same dimensions on the collector.
A 4-1 would be my pick of extractor to make power up higher in the rpm range.

 

[junglistgsr]

the very least for a header i would get would be the JDM ITR 4-1 or the DC JDM 4-1....with a carsound 2.5" cat.....

 

[deMad10]

Get the gears so you can tune it, then the header.

 

[DelHop]

Get the gears so you can tune it, then the header.

NO! Get the header, then gears. Tune the car with the headers installed.
The header will require different timing advance/retard than the OEM header.

 

[White98LS]

Thanks for all the info guys

I want to keep the engine NA, and the powerband below 7500rpm or so. I'm not going to do a whole lot of engine work after this, maybe a couple bolt-ons and I'll be done.

DelHop: Maybe that valvetrain stuff would be good for 9500, but the rest of my LS engine wouldn't and by the time I built up the rest of the engine that strong, I could have had my self something better to start with, like a B18C5. I'm aiming to keep everything close to the stock rev range. Also, why shouldn't I mess with aftermarket gaskets? The Spoon one is $110, which is only a bit more $$ (I think) than normal. You really think a stock 1-layer would make 0.6-1.0 difference? The Spoon one is about 0.4 difference and it's only like 0.45mm thick.

Also you guys seem to say that I should get a 2.5" exhaust. Shouldn't I stick with 2.25"?? 2.5" seems a little extreme for what I'm doing, but I dunno, maybe you guys are right.

Tuan: I know that you like the whole "package" and I would too, but I can only afford one thing at a time. Basically I want to know if my choice of cams seems like a good idea, and which of the 3 options I listed (or any others you would recommend within cost constraints) would extract the most power with the cams. Sounds like the consensus so far is headers, then dyno-tuning with cam gears after that. Your recommendations??

THANKS EVERYBODY, and keep it coming!!

 

[DelHop]

Re: Thanks for all the info guys

DelHop: aftermarket gaskets? The Spoon one is $110, which is only a bit more $$ (I think) than normal. You really think a stock 1-layer would make 0.6-1.0 difference? The Spoon one is about 0.4 difference and it's only like 0.45mm thick.

the single layer head factory gasket is about .245 think.
Like i said, it's about .6 gain in CR.
Trust me, i've done the numbers.

 

[White98LS]

Oh okay, sorry I didn't know that stock ones were that thin. Is it okay to run just a single layer stock one? Will it hold up? Thanks.

 

[DelHop]

Oh okay, sorry I didn't know that stock ones were that thin. Is it okay to run just a single layer stock one? Will it hold up? Thanks.

Yeah, it'll be ok with a near stock Compression Ratio.
I'll be running a single layer on a 12.5-1 CR

 

[White98LS]

Wow, cool how much do stock gaskets cost anyway?

 

[White98LS]

Thanks a LOT for all your help Tuan and others! I think I will go ahead and get the 62403 cams with a stock 1-layer head gasket, then get headers (not sure whether to get 4-1 or 4-2-1 for this application, but I'll do some research), then hopefully dyno-tune it all with cam gears soon after. Thank you guys again SO MUCH!!

 

[DelHop]

Re: Re: Thanks for all the info guys

Tuan

is that you from the Old One BBS?

 

[DelHop]

yep I'm Tuan at the Endyn site and D e z o r i s . com (damn censorship) and Michael Delaney on team-integra and honda - tech as well...

I was "Evan" at the Endyn Site.

Whats going on over there, have you heard anything RE: the boards return?

 

[White98LS]

more info e-mail me. D

Sweet!!! That's way cool and just what I want. I would e-mail you but I can't get it through this site, says I have to go through an administrator. If you don't want to post your address on here, you can e-mail me at [email protected] so I can respond back. Thanks a lot, sounds damn cool. Just wanna ask you a couple things, like:

Are these all your mods? No intake, for example? Stock compression?

How much did this all cost, and where did you get it?

Any reason Pacesetter header instead of DC?

Do I really need valve springs too?

Was your 1/4 time on street tires? With a full interior?

Well, I guess that is all I wanted to ask right now. If you could e-mail me back or post that would be really helpful. Don't worry I won't "copy" your engine, just want some helpful info. Thanks so much!

 

[White98LS]

Oh yeah and also do you have cam gears, a fuel pressure regulator, and all this dyno-tuned, or does the reprogrammed computer take care of these things? I was planning on getting a $55 B&M fuel pressure modulator (20-60 pounds adjustable) and Skunk 2 cam gears (for the 6-bolt design).