ABZSTILO said:

Sorry Red but BB is quite right in what he's saying about cams/heads etc.
Peter has a different view from the post he's made on the topic but in this instance they are both correct, from a certain point of view. I am reasonably confident that Peter wouldn't disagree with the point I made in my earlier post about 'old school' tuning, the difference being that we're in a different technology market today.

In an ideal world all performance parts would be bespoke but they're not (as that'd be b*ggeringly expensive) hence the off the shelf market which we all know and love.

We all know that a performance manifold will help get the gases out and improve the breathing of the engine (but arguably that only works if you increase flow through the rest of the exhaust system) that's not in dispute, but matching cams to manifolds sounds like a fairy tale to me. Yes, there would be benefits matching performance cams to a performance inlet and exhaust manifolds,that's undeniable.
However, even today, an experienced tuner will still get damn good results with aftermarket cams on an otherwise standard engine - fact!

Verniers traditionally allowed for optimum timing before modern engine management systems came along but today those management systems possibly allow more scope to tweak an engine without having to change the cams.... or anything else for that matter. However, I'd have thought a responsible engine tuner would still use verniers to optomise the timing of new cams in an engine. Every single performance engine I've built (and that is several) has had vernier pulleys as fine tuning is soooo much easier that way.

But none of those engines I built had modern ECUs which is why, to be clear, neither BB or Oldschool are wrong as there is no right answer.... this is more about tuning philosophy that tuning practicality. When I win the lottery we will prove both points of view are right and that no-one is wrong, but until then I guess we're going round and round in circles on this one

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ABZSTILO said:

Sorry Red but BB is quite right in what he's saying about cams/heads etc.
Peter has a different view from the post he's made on the topic

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dave said:

this is not just the view of peter, he was there but in the room was about 10 tuners and exhaust builders with over 100 years of experience between them, who all agreed the same. peter is the only one who is a ff member though

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ABZSTILO said:

Even C&B cams aren't all that cheap http://www.colombo-bariani.com/catalogo.php?lang=eng but that's where I'd start looking.

Although it's possibly a bit old school (as in method not the forum member) IMHO you'd be as well getting the head 'blueprinted' (at least ported and polished) by someone who knows what they're doing and get them to fit the cams for you...

What do you want to achieve, what do you want to spend and what can you do yourself

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ABZSTILO said:

In an ideal or hypothetical tuning situation, as I have said in previous posts in this thread, that's fine and I don't dispute it.

However as we actually live in the real world Peters sweeping comment in this very thread "You will never get very good results with an aftermarket of the shelf cam and an aftermarket off the shelf manifold. This is fact." is horribly misleading as 99% of tuning product is from off the shelf aftermarket products with a proven record - therefore results should be very good.
Dave, surely you can see that Peters comment flies in the face of everything we know about tuning?

For small production or limited interest cars (let's be honest, the 2.4 Stilo fits right in here) then there is very little choice and tuning products are likely to be almost bespoke in nature as demand is slight. So it's conceivable that a camshaft maker and an exhaust manufacturer will work together - but it's unlikely.

In the real world:

Cam guy wants to get lift and duration but keep tractability.
Exhuast guy wants a free flowing system to help the engine 'breathe'.

Do they work together - errr..... no. They both do what they're good at and we have products we can buy off the shelf and can reasonably expect to get good results from them.

Broken_brian is/was quite right in what he suggested in his original post on the subject as it represents what tuners and enthusiasts have been doing since the combustion engine was conceived. To suggest that "you will never get very good results" by going down this path is simply daft - IMHO at least.

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dave said:

people want best for their money then the peter way will get them the best gains for the £

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ABZSTILO said:

I don't doubt that the Peter way (whatever that way may be) isn't the best way for hard earned £ to earn performance gains. I do, however, think you are subtly choosing to ignore the point that's being made Dave!

Never mind, back to the thread subject of finding off the shelf performance products for Yazza54

Yazza54:

The C&B cams would be a good start, they have a solid reputation. Any respectable workshop should be able to blueprint or port 'n polish a cylinder head for you. Even with modern engines it's worth making sure the valves are matched to their seats but the good news is that Fiat heads are usually pretty good in that respect.
It could be worth looking at getting someone like Guy Croft to have a play with it and see what sort of flow figures he comes up with (http://www.guy-croft.com/ the forum makes interesting reading) and recommendations for further 'tweaks' to the head, You could maybe look at bigger valves but as I've never seen a 16valve head from a Stilo I don't know how much room there would be for that modification.

I don't think you're likely to be looking at different pistons, just head work and inlet/exhaust modifications? When you get into pistons we're talking funny money.

The GSR induction kit will give you a significant improvement over the standard induction which is pretty tortuous and strangles airflow. It's worth matching the inlet manifold to the head, there's quite often a mismatch there which can restrict the flow of the air/fuel mix - but that's a nice have over a must do. As the head will be coming off anyway it's worth considering.

On the fuelling side of things the remap helps, I doubt at this level of tuning if there'd be much merit in changing the injectors but worth making sure they're in top condition.

I think you've already got the exhaust sorted? Maybe not the exhaust manifold? That might need to be custom made, not something I've looked into on the Stilo but someone may know better.

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ABZSTILO said:

Any respectable workshop should be able to blueprint or port 'n polish a cylinder head for you.

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dave said:

:nono: we dont polish ports no more now do we

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Yazza54 said:

Arent inlets supposed to be kept a bit rough?

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dave said:

yep

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Davren said:

It may not be the engine you're discussing in this thread but there a pdf copy of Guy Croft's book "Modifying & Tuning Fiat and Lancia Twin Cam Engines" here:



Dave.

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dave said:

:nono: we dont polish ports no more now do we

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