Jay Wellwood

Hey Gang-

Looking into the performance and history of my '87 S4 Auto, I have discovered some quirks that I'd like to address - and hopefully get some answers to...

After several phone calls, it appears that my car had custom ground cams installed a few years ago by Bruhmo's Porsche in Jacksonville. Apparently, the cams are ground such that the only way Bruhoms techs could get the car to run on standard pump gas was to retard the timing a bit when they were installed (I assume this was by setting a negative dial in value). Looking at the marks on the cam gears vs. the harmonic balancer - I have been able to confirm this. In theaory I guess this makes sense as if the cams were to advanced, pinging would occur - which in turn would cause the knock sensors to apply the protective retard vales to prevent/minimize engine damage.

I have the original cams - and I'm strongly considering swapping back to them. Looking in the shop manuals, I noticed some tools for setting the cams in the proper position during installation. Anyone BTDT?

Also, while at SITM a couple of weekends ago, I got to talking to the Porsche mechanic who was att4ending the SCCA Porche team car during the event. While talking to him, he indicated that the S4 and GT engines could easily be enhanced performance wise by 'degreeing' in the cams and that it took about 8 hours os so. That being said, again - anyone BTDT? If I'm going to go to the trouble to restore the orignal cams, I'd obviously like to enhance the performance as much as poossible.

Sorry for the bandwidth...

Jay
'87 S4 Auto

Tails

Jay,
Look up the following site: http://www.jageng.com/
Under water cooled V8, but they are updating their Water Cooled V* Note Book and it has a very good description of cambelt and cam setup.

Tails 90 S4

Jay Wellwood

Thanks....

Tom. M

Here's a question,

I have noticed several 87/88 S4's with either GT or CS cams (mattman) - (are they the same???) or custom cams (like Jay). Now on ebay there is a 88 S4 A/T with GTS cams? Can the cams be interchanged between S4/GT/GTS without any otehr major changes. What about the brain interaction? Do you need a GT or GTS brain to make the cams (gains) work...?

Thanks in advance,

Tom
midlman@seanet.com

Jay Wellwood

Yeah, I now remember that Red 88 on eBay. That's a pretty good question. I would guess that the (cam) differences would be in duration. In as far as the brains are concerned - probably no big deal - and if it were, you may be able to compensate using a DasTek unit, or so I'm told.