Artificial cam chop - love it or hate it?

[acammer]

I thought this might spark some interesting conversation here, so I propose a question - do you guys like or dislike artificial cam chop?

What is artificial cam chop? It's when a tuner intentionally builds some oscillation into the idle tune with the Idle Adaptive Spark Control Overspeed and Underspeed tables and cause the cars idle to bounce, or chop as the car oscillates between overspeed and underspeed on the target idle rpm. Typically, you'll hear this on a cammed LS.

Here are some very different sounding cammed idles, with essentially the same cam profile.

(My) GPI SS3 - zero artificial chop, we went for the smoothest, most natural 800rpm idle. It still bounces and surges a little - but it has 19* of overlap to contend with, so you wouldn't expect it to be rock solid.


GPI SS3 - essentially the same cam profile with significant artificial chop tuned in.


I'll start with my own preference, which is probably obvious by the tuning on my car - I like zero artificial chop. To me, the natural lope of the cam has a beauty all it's own, and the artificial chop is a little bit "try hard".

But that's just my opinion - certainly not a right or wrong answer here. I'm just interested to see what other peoples thoughts and preferences are like.

Tuners - do people typically ask for anything specific in their idle quality? I work very closely with my tuner, and I know I was very specific about what I wanted, but that's probably not the norm. Is there a standard you have?

[SSEssence]

I'm not a fan of the "ghost" cam tune and I'm not an expert but it's probably so great for the motor either.

[Chris49066SS]

When I went in to GPI, James and I went back to talk to Ryan about tuning preferences for my SS4 cam. We talked about rev limits, shift points, converter lockup, etc, and I told him I wanted the meanest, nastiest, roughest idle I could get with this cam. Thats all I really had to say, and I am happy with the results. I run open headers and daily drive it, and it turns (all of the) heads. I get that shaking and rattling while at stoplights and like it. Thats what I prefer and won't change it for anything, except for possibly adding about 2 feet of 3 inch pipe with a turndown in the near future.

Ghost cam - no. If a car is not cammed, why try and pretend you have one? Just seems silly to me, and thats only my opinion.

[Taylortoons]

Er, the SS3 cam is nasty either way. To me a ghost cam would be a stock motor with an artificial lobe tuned into it.

My SS3 sounds like the second clip (link in my sig). The whole car shakes and shimmies at idle and I love that!

[acammer]

Originally Posted by Taylortoons

Er, the SS3 cam is nasty either way. To me a ghost cam would be a stock motor with an artificial lobe tuned into it.

My SS3 sounds like the second clip (link in my sig). The whole car shakes and shimmies at idle and I love that!

It's definitely not a right or wrong type of thing. And I would definitely agree that the SS3 is going to be a monster no matter how tame you try to make it.

It's even worse when the stock cam guys try to make them do it, although it definitely can be done. Worse yet has to be the ghost cam Coyotes - they have the best of both worlds and throw it away to sound cool - that's the definition of RICE right there. I accept the bad behavior that comes along with a big cam because I must to gain the performance I seek. The noise is a benefit but the reduced vacuum, high fuel consumption, low end torque loss, and drivability changes are all points I would happily do without. To intentionally make the car run worse just to sound cool boggles my mind.

[zz430camaro]

I always just want to get the best idle out of an engine you can and is sounds the way its going to sound. To me making it run rougher than it should just to sound good is kinda a FORD thing.

[2010reddevil]

Well the ghost cam Coyote ones are just tightening the LSA, since it can be controlled on the fly. A pushrod engine has the LSA ground into it. And if you look at the cam specs of a Coyote, they are actually pretty lumpy. The Ti-VCT being adjustable is how they are able to idle so smooth with those cams in there. If it were an older 4v 4.6L, it would thump out the ass too. But yeah, I agree that the idle should be as smooth as you can make it. If it's still lumpy afterwards, then so be it. Hehe

[christianchevell]

your cam makes the sound along with the advance ground in and then you set the timing....messing with anything else to make more chop is garbage; might as well be a stereo playing engine sounds like a BMW …… If people want different chop they should have ordered a different cam IMO....

[WHAMMO]

Natural and "smooth" for me. I dont see why youd need the ghost cam tune over the smoother one; both are equally ruff imo.

[NEstyle]

It's about as cool as oversized exhaust tips, huge wings, and fake carbon fiber.

[Pro-tuned]

I would do it with tight LSA, but I prefer smooth.

[Taylortoons]

I want full chop but because there is a beast within

[Chris49066SS]

Full chop.

[lazerlemonta]

I want the crisp throttle response and artificial chop would likely be lazier