Cams or machined/flowed head -which to go for?

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

I have the mods for my 172 planned out:-

182 ex. manifold
K-tek sports cat
Machined/matched inlet manifold
Hi-flow panel filter
K-tec ecu re-map
Headwork (of some sort) at K-tec

I plan to get all the bits before before all the work is done. Should have the ex. mani and cat in the next month or so. Not long after i will have the inlets and air filter - i will fit these both first myself.

When money is plentiful, i will then take a visit to K-tec to have the ex. bits fitted. At the same time, i will have them do the headwork, but i dont really want to go all the way and have the flowed head done as well as cams, so i was thinking - what is more worth while doing for the money??? Cams or flowed head?? This would then be followed by the ecu re-map

They quoted a price of around £1K all in for head removal/fitting and flowed head.
Their quote for head removal/fitting plus new cams would be about £1100 all in.

From anyones experience, what would be more worth while doing, taking into account the other planned mods?? i.e what the most bhp gain for the money??

Many thanks

 

[ben_p]

why are you using k-tec, just wondered?

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

i live in Southampton - so fairly local to me. Why? heard bad things?

 

[ben_p]

no no, never ! they seem good. mite be an idea to go for cams and the headwork dude, if the heads gona be off then may as well stick them in as there will be no extra labour a you have to take the old ones out when removing the head! so jsut the raw cost of the cams

what cams were you looking at

 

[Fred@BTM]

wouldn't bother with the head really (cost V gains)

 

[GordonD]

Head or cams?

Cams.

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

Ben, the thing is i want to do one or the other - im not rich!! Cost of the cams is about £600, as opposed to £500 for headwork labour, then i got to add £450 for the labour of removing/fitting the head to either of those figures. So the bottom line is, i want to do what ever will give me the best gains out of those 2 mods.

Fred, are you saying dont bother with the headwork and go for the cams? or are you saying forget any headwork altogether?

Gordon, reasons for going down the cams route?? obviously you think cams will give the better gains, but care to explain why?

Cheers all

 

[graham_172]

cams rather than having the head ported.

 

[Hegs]

headwork only rly works wonders wen u hav a high power engine for the money i would go 4 cams cus it wud giv u more bhp 4 ur money at this stage. the heads on 172s arnt 2 bad neway

 

[Johnc172]

I don't think you should go for the sports cat either, no point, do it properly and get a de-cat, gains will be much more noticeable if you have cams as well

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

I don't think you should go for the sports cat either, no point, do it properly and get a de-cat, gains will be much more noticeable if you have cams as well

personally i dont think the extra 1-2bhp is really worth the effort of fitting i different cat twice a year come MOT time.

The cams i'm looking at are the Billet cams that K-tec supply - anyone have these fitted to their 172's??

 

[Fred@BTM]

no, but we do supply and fit Schricks

head doesn't have to come off to change cams, so cheaper in labour

the head is CNC ported from factory (on the inlet) we've done a few with headwork and the difference has been there, but whether it warrants £1K+ extra is for you to decide

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

Thanks fred, you hit the nail on the head there, and my mind is made up now - defo going for the cams! Just makes more sense seeing as the head still stays on the car. and like others have said, better gains too.

How much labour is needed for new cams? and what cams are the better ones fred?

 

[Black_clio]

Schrick 270° cams will run on reflashed stock ECU

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

yeh - i would like to know, whats the best cam to use together with the mods i said in the first post, and with a stock ECU with group-N re-map?? K-tec have obviously tried and tested the Billet cams with their re-map successfully.....

 

[Black_clio]

yeh you get billet cams, you do want you want mate!

as for the cam profile..... check what i say it the post above instead of being so f**king negative.... hell get your 'sports' cat at 3 times cost of de-cat and waste your money on flowed head too

in abit

 

[Fred@BTM]

send me an e-mail if you want to know more team@yozzasport.co.uk

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

yeh you get billet cams, you do want you want mate!

as for the cam profile..... check what i say it the post above instead of being so f**king negative.... hell get your 'sports' cat at 3 times cost of de-cat and waste your money on flowed head too

in abit

did you wake up on the wrong side of bed? im not being negative at all mate - im mearly gathering information from which i'll make the best decision possible! More info the better! Your infomation is hardly unbiased or explainatory tbh. I'm taking on board all advise given, hopefully to buy the best cams possible. I'd like to get a set which give a fair boost in performance, while at the same time are not rediculously wild causing a rough tickover.

Oh yeh, and i've already said i have ditched the flowed head idea and i have not yet said which cams i defo want to get - Billets are just easilly available where the work will be carried out

Cheers

 

[GordonD]

Gordon, reasons for going down the cams route?? obviously you think cams will give the better gains, but care to explain why?

With head work you get improvements from bigger valves, better and/or bigger porting and higher compression. There just isn't enough gain available in any of those areas on this particular engine to make it worth the cost, except perhaps as a last resort to get the last few extra horsepower to beat the competition. Whereas there are cams that give known good benefits.

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

Thanks Gordon, thats the kind of answers im after Cams here i come!

 

[ben_p]

CAT! CAT! CAT! CAT!

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

I think the original purpose of this thread has been acheived - cams

Cheers all

 

[Markpw]

Ive just had my cam belt changed at 41k on my cup and had Ben @AWT put in some higher lift cat cams. This added to my matched inlet, cat back zorst, ITG panel and a RSTuninig remap has made a vast improvement. I was going to stump out the extra cash for the headwork but another £600 seemed alot for not alot of gain. But as you all know NA engines and sooo expensive to tune to acheive higher bhp.
Nonetheless my cup pulls so much eagerly now especially when you hit 4k all the way to the new red line !!

So defo get cams but make sure they are decent ones and get a decent remap

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

Mark, im planning pretty much the same set of mods for my 172, the only exception being i will retain my standard cat back exhaust system but fit a 182 exhaust manifold and sports cat. I will be having the work done at K-tec in bournemouth, a reputable renault tuner. They will fit Cat Cam billet cams (same as yours by the sounds of it, just spoken to AWT, and these are what they use most), and i hear their group-N re-maps are pretty good.

So hopefully mine should be pulling as well as yours! I dont suppose you have had your on a rolling road have you?

 

[edde]

With head work you get improvements from bigger valves, better and/or bigger porting and higher compression. There just isn't enough gain available in any of those areas on this particular engine to make it worth the cost, except perhaps as a last resort to get the last few extra horsepower to beat the competition. Whereas there are cams that give known good benefits.

The 172 valves are big enough as it is there oversized realy. You can go to big.

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

Schrick 270° cams will run on reflashed stock ECU

I have spoken to both K-tec and Angelworks about this now, and both say that if your using a re-mapped stock ecu, the profile of the Catcam camshafts will work better then if Schricks were used - apparently you will need an aftermarket ecu to get the full potential from schrick cams.

 

[Fred@BTM]

nope

 

[BenR]

Who did you speak to here, as i never say anything like that about Schricks.

Only think i say about them is that their cam data doesnt add up as technically the data provided shouldnt idle on a stock ecu, however it does so i must be pure geometrical data not lift based data.

 

[ja.jack]

nope

Is Fred a tuner, or the front man for a tuning company? Either way, he do'nt fill me with confidence. lol

 

[Fred@BTM]

i would never expect to jack

 

[ja.jack]

A comma would have made that statement literate.lol

 

[Final Maxim]

is jack the new troll?

 

[Peperami]

Nah he's just a d*ck.

 

[ja.jack]

Is a troll someone who stands against the bullshine artists?

 

[BenR]

I thought they sat under bridges and asked for tolls?

 

[Peperami]

 

[ja.jack]

No more crack from Ben tonight. He gets up early to sort out the mini-valver clio. Poor chap waits for many months and very sad.

 

[BenR]

oh james.........can i buy you a new record?

 

[Graham Gooch]

Nah he's just a d*ck.

Proberly the most sensible thing written on CS lol.

 

[16vMK2 to 172Sport]

Who did you speak to here, as i never say anything like that about Schricks.

Only think i say about them is that their cam data doesnt add up as technically the data provided shouldnt idle on a stock ecu, however it does so i must be pure geometrical data not lift based data.

It wasn't you i spoke to no, cant remember his name - you had some misterious holiday time last week, they couldn't specify your whereabouts lol

Might have to give you a call soon