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Dropped the A cam into my '93 244 yesterday - SWEET UPGRADE!
Installing the cam was the easy part, it was getting TO it that was a pain! I hate that timing cover, it's broken on my car anyway and I was tempted to leave it off.
The installation went smooth, easier than I expected, but I accidentally skipped a tooth on the timing belt at one point. That took a while to sort out, especially since the cam change caused the car to idle like crap even when I had the timing right. Now that I've driven it all day the ECU seems to have adjusted to the change.
Bob Law asked me to time my 0-60 with the stock cam to see how much it changed - I didn't. Sorry Bob! I forgot. Aside from butt-o-meter impressions the only "numbers" I can offer as proof of the improvement is that with the M cam the engine fell on its face at about 5000rpms, I don't remember ever being able to reach 6000. Today I looked at the tach and was surprised to see that I swiftly passed 5000rpms and kept climbing until about 6200 where I decided to let off the gas - I may have been speeding at that point. :)
I can feel that I lost some low-rev torque, but not enough to make much difference or to bother me. I used an adjustable gear and set it at 4 deg. advanced so maybe that helped. But either way the top end is definitely improved! As I said, it now pulls to redline, and pulls harder than the M at those engine speeds. Unfortunately the benefits aren't noticeable before about 3000rpms, so it's most useful for the flow of traffic, not for jumping out into it.
I didn't adjust the valves, nor even check them - it's still a non-interference engine so I'm not worried about damaging anything. I intend to get a feel for the cam, decide if I want to keep it (I DO!) and then I'll probably take the car up to a friendly mechanic to have him do the adjustment. He does it pretty cheap and has the tools to do so without removing the cam.
In short, I can fully recommend the A cam swap as well worth the effort. It makes the car drive more like the stuff coming out of Europe today, i.e. sportier. I like torquiness and low-rev grunt, I prefer it, but without building a stroker B230F that's not going to be too practical. The M cam is good for puttering around traffic, and probably for climbing hills at sedate speeds, but in the high-speed melee of todays highways it fails.
Great upgrade, now I just need a 2.5" exhaust and a bigger throttle body...
Sean
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