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-   -   ECS Big Blower Cam - Results are in with a solid 51 RWHP gain (https://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128899)

robertway 02-11-2011 10:24 PM

ECS Big Blower Cam - Results are in with a solid 51 RWHP gain
 
I finally got my car tuned after having installed the ECS Big Blower cam that I got from East Coast Supercharging (ECS) last month. I'll start the post off with the video and then fill in all the details after for those that are interested in the process I went through in the effort to choose a cam.



For those that made it past the video, here is the whole story...

Back in April of 2010, Doug at ECS tuned the car which had just the RotoFab CAI, Kooks Long Tubes and Hi-Flow Cats, and stock mid-pipes and mufflers and I walked away with 404 RWHP at 5400rpm and 428 RWTQ at 4400rpm. The car drove great and pulled really hard until the limits of the stock cam reared it head and torque fell off hard after 4400 rpm as you can see in the dyno sheet below. By 6000 rpms torque had dropped off over 100ft/lbs and was falling so hard it wasn't even worth it to pull any further near the rev limiter.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8424/7...48212bcc_b.jpg

Having enjoyed the car for several months, the top end drop-off started to get old real quick. I was not ready to financially go all-in with a blower just yet so I figured the next logical step was a cam. Going back and forth in my mind whether or not I was going to do a blower in the future I finally decided I did not want to have any "do-overs" and even though I would be staying N/A for possibly another year or so I wanted to do a blower friendly cam now to avoid putting in a big N/A cam that wouldn't play nice with a blower later on.

My main goals for choosing a cam were threefold. I did not want to lose too much drivability/low-end torque, I wanted to maintain the nice mid-range torque that I already had, and finally and most importantly I wanted the car to pul hard and make power all the way to the rev limiter. I knew how much RWHP I would probably pick up with a blower cam after having seen what others picked up at peak but I was more concerned with everything under the curve and not falling off at the top. Over the course of a few months I spent some time with Mike Moran at ECS and even some more time on the phone and via email with him and Chris Coriell discussing what my goals for the car were in the near term as well as later on. Based on those goals and the blower in the future Mike and Chris recommended I go with the custom Big Blower Cam grind that they have developed in-house and has been used in the Corvette community for years now with rave reviews. If you ask me what the specs are on the cam I have no idea, if you ask any of them you'll get either "duration in the 220's and lift around 580" or my favorite answer I've seen them give is "it's lumpy". To be honest, I could care less what the actual specs are because what was more important was Mike showing me dyno sheet after dyno sheet of cars similar to mine (CAI and Long Tubes) with the Big Blower Cam and it gave a very consistent picture of what kind of results they achieve with that setup.

An example of this was the following sheet they sent over depicting a 2010 Camaro LS3 with the same CAI and LT's I was running and their Big Blower Cam. When I compared it to my earlier sheet it did what I wanted in that it didn't seem to lose much at all down low, still had the healthy mid-range, and pulled all the way to the end. Now I know this wasn't my car and all cars are slightly different but every sheet I had seen painted a similar picture and it was enough for me to know I was going with the right cam and having the right shop tune it.

(I would ignore some of the comments in red below as the car obviously didn't make 560 RWHP here)
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8160/7...b74f24f7_b.jpg

I had fun driving the car un-tuned to ECS fighting to keep it alive at every Stop sign and red traffic light along the way as it didn't even bother to try and find idle and would just konk out, revving the engine at every stop got me some funny looks to say the least. Luckily I am only about 30 miles from ECS and most of them are highway miles so I just took it easy on the car and kept things under 2500 rpms to play it safe.

Pulled up up to the shop in the early afternoon and after some prep work setting up the wideband by Matt the shop manager, Doug Ring jumped in the driver's seat with laptop in hand and started working on the car's idle and then took it out on the road to further data log and tune for drivability. Once back from the street it was into the dyno garage where Doug spent a good amount of time working out partial throttle performance before getting into WOT tuning. It didn't take long for Doug to bring the car from its initial WOT pull of 438 RWHP up to a pull of 463 RWHP. Satisfied with what he was seeing in the data logs, Doug finished things off with a pair of back to back pulls that resulted in 460 RWHP followed immediately by the final 455 RWHP pull. His explanation for the back to back pulls was simple, he got the 463 pull a few minutes earlier so if he could jump in again and get solid pulls back to back without issue in the data logs, the final pull represented a very realistic number that the car could consistently put down out on the street. He easily coulda sat around for 5-10 minutes to play dyno-games and get a 465-470 pull out of the car but the 455 on a heat soaked engine, on this dyno, on this day was a much more realistic number.

The one thing we forgot to do was do one final pull with the NOWEEDS Exhaust Diverters open as it would have been nice to see another pull done a minute or so after the back to back pulls to see what the gain would have been with the open exhaust. I wound up going back down to ECS a week later when they were able to fit me in for some pulls to get the closed/open diverter comparison. I got to the shop first thing int he morning and after Matt got in a handful of pulls to get some heat into the dyno he did two pulls separated by 15 seconds, first with the diverters closed and then open and the car picked up 9 RWTQ and 10 RWHP on the second pull. The open exhaust really started to show itself above 5000 rpms and if Matt had let the car cool for a few minutes it might have pulled 15-20 more at the wheels but then again that would be playing dyno-games. I discuss the diverters a little more in another thread. The diverter pulls were off a bit from the pulls done the day the car was tuned (only 10 RWHP with the diverters closed) but it was chalked up to different day and maybe not a fully warmed up dyno but the thing that really maters is the back to back closed/open pulls showed there was a gain to be had and possibly even more of a gain later on when the blower goes on.

The final sheet I walked away with shows a couple of things, most importantly to me it achieved the goals I wanted to in the first place by barely loosing any power down low, keeping the solid mid-range, and then pulling all the way to the limiter (which was set at 7000 rpms now). Secondly, my sheet backed up the recommendation Chris and Mike had made and confirmed the results of all the other sheets they had shown me of similar setups, and I am not even mention the sheets I had seen of cars with this setup along with a blower and meth on top of them :confused0068:.

It lost a little bit below 3000, held the mid-range dead on from 3000 to 4500, and beyond 4500 she just starts to sing...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8168/7...74156996_b.jpg

Having driven the car a number of times in the past week I really can't speak for how hard it pulls on the street because it keeps breaking lose in 1st and 2nd since it is so cold out here in Jersey right now. In the battle for traction between 315 Nitto Invos and 17 degree temps, the 17 degree temps win out so a full review will have to wait for warmer temps and when I finally venture out to Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ (20 minutes from my house :thumbup:) for the Wednesday night Test & Tune on the 1320'. I never made it out to the track last year and don't know why, oh yeah, job, wife, bunch of kids, now I remember, but I am going to make it a point to get out there this year so I can at least put some times against that dyno sheet and hopefully not embarrass myself in the process (I have NEVER been down the 1320... EVER... :facepalm:), get ready for some three second 60's :D.

Drivability of the car has been great so far. I have never had a car that has been "cammed" before, as a matter of fact I have never had a performance car before so I have nothing to compare it to. Cruising on the highway in 6th gear anywhere between 1000 and 1500 rpms and there isn't even a hint of surging then again I am usually at 2000 rpms in the 6th just to keep up with everybody here on the Interstates and Turnpike in Jersey so not much of a chance for surging anyway. In parking lots and creeping through my neighborhood I have had to adjust how I drive the car a bit. Chris at ECS warned me that creeping around between 1200-1300 rpm I could see some bucking and he was dead on. I usually creep through the neighborhood in 3rd around 1200 rpm to stay below 25mph and keep the exhaust note down, I can still do that but if I get off the throttle too much it starts to buck, dropping down to second and running at 1700 or so eliminates all the bucking altogether. In parking lots it is the same story, I used to creep around in 2nd at 1100-1200 and if I get off the throttle too much it'll buck a bit, drop to 1st and 1700 or so and everything is fine I just have to get into the clutch a little sooner when slowing down for speed bumps or pedestrians (here in Jersey the two sometimes get confused and when they do there are hit-n-run headlines in the papers :facepalm:)

Overall I am totally happy with the results. From Chris and Mike working with me on the details of what I wanted to do with the car now with the future in mind and tolerating my indecision and at times pestering, to Doug tuning the car as thoroughly and consistently as he does after having come back to the garage to accommodate me after having left for the day, and Matt fitting me in to get the diverter comparison pulls in despite the workload queued up for the dyno, I can't say enough good things about how I have been treated at ECS. From the time I walked in last year to get the CAI/Headers tune they have treated me as if I had been going there for years and I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone :thumbup:

Now I just gotta start refilling that coin jar for the Centri Blower and Meth kit to go on next winter. I've seen the sheets and what the ECS guys can do with them on top of an LS3 and their Big Blower Cam :confused0068:

Update added 02/16/2011;

In regard to fuel economy, I just got back from a 450 mile round trip venture down to Virginia and on the Interstate averaged 24mpg on the way down (until of course I got to the traffic on the DC 495 loop :mad0259:) and then a solid 24mpg all the way home with the cruise control set at 1950rpm in 6th with the manual 3.45's, you do the math, I shall not incriminate myself :D

mikeSS 02-11-2011 10:32 PM

you have some of the best write ups good job with the car !

2SSCAMARO 02-12-2011 06:48 AM

This ought to make you feel good. You are putting out the exact same RWHP NA that I am with my L99 except for the fact mine is fitted with a maggie. I can't predict your 60' times but I think you will trap out at about 120 mph and you should easily run an 11.xx ET. Enjoy.

robertway 02-12-2011 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeSS (Post 2830980)
you have some of the best write ups good job with the car !

Thanks, and you have the funniest avatar, every time I see one of your posts that friggin picture cracks me up in a :facepalm: kind of way :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2SSCAMARO (Post 2831797)
This ought to make you feel good. You are putting out the exact same RWHP NA that I am with my L99 except for the fact mine is fitted with a maggie. I can't predict your 60' times but I think you will trap out at about 120 mph and you should easily run an 11.xx ET. Enjoy.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I just want to get to the traps the first few times I go, nevermind the speed :rolleyes:

Alain 02-12-2011 10:57 AM

that's very impressive man. where in Jersey are you? i'd love to hear that thing in person. and where is ECS located. i'm thinking about putting a cam in my car and i don't think there are any dynos up here around Bergen County.

robertway 02-12-2011 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alain (Post 2832295)
that's very impressive man. where in Jersey are you? i'd love to hear that thing in person. and where is ECS located. i'm thinking about putting a cam in my car and i don't think there are any dynos up here around Bergen County.

Thanks for the compliment. I am in Monmouth County not far from the GSP. ECS is down in Cream Ridge, maybe 75 miles or so south of you depending upon where in Bergen you are. Here is a map link to them;

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...8&z=12&iwloc=A

navyblueSS 02-12-2011 12:37 PM

Nice numbers! Very nice write up, car sounds good.

1977and2010 02-12-2011 02:30 PM

Yeah man great write up and nice numbers. Hoping to get mine cammed sometime later this year too. Again good job.

Alain 02-13-2011 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robertway (Post 2832301)
Thanks for the compliment. I am in Monmouth County not far from the GSP. ECS is down in Cream Ridge, maybe 75 miles or so south of you depending upon where in Bergen you are. Here is a map link to them;

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...8&z=12&iwloc=A

im right next to Paramus, right off Route 17. thanks for the link

East Coast Supercharging 02-21-2011 12:36 PM

Great write up!! Glad your enjoying the car. :thumbup:

NinoSS 02-21-2011 06:09 PM

Great job Robert... All that power should roast those stockers for sure... :)

robertway 02-21-2011 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NinoSS (Post 2869938)
Great job Robert... All that power should roast those stockers for sure... :)

Hopefully not too soon, gotta make through the season on one set.

khislop007 02-21-2011 08:08 PM

Awesome write up and vid!

WHIPPLECHARGED 02-21-2011 09:38 PM

Wow your car sounds great! Makes me want to install a cam. Very nice write up, thanks for taking the time to share with all of us.


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