| Technical Support Inquiry Of The Month - Technical Support - Big Cams, Head Gasket, And Valve Springs Is it almost time to start school again? There's a feeling that we'll never miss. Well, except for Jonny since he still goes to school. We hope that we provided enough entertainment to get you through the past three months of vacation. Your car better be up and running now. We want your cars to be finished. In fact, we're still answering your letters so keep sending them in. You better know how to reach us by now. Snail mail will get to us at Super Street Magazine c/o Technical Support 6420 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90048. Anyone who plans to get their questions or problems to us faster than the three weeks it takes the United States Postal Service, you can e-mail us at sstreet@primedia.com. Oh yeah, we have another winner this month and you know what that means. Wait, you don't? Damn, where have you been locked up? Aaron Carney is our Technical Support Inquiry of the Month and he gets himself a Street Performance muffler from Magnaflow (949.858.5900, magnaflow.com). The popular 5-inch round size fits easily in limited-space applications, reduces backpressure to increase performance, and can be further quieted for street use with an included removable sound damper. Congrats, Aaron. We hope you enjoy your prize, unlike some other unappreciative bastards and their moms.
Q.Hello. I have never written to a magazine before, but I thought I'd give it a try. I am sure that you guys get tons of letters so it's OK if it takes you a long time to reply to mine if you do at all. I'm 17 years old and just started getting into the whole sport compact scene. My friends introduced me to a couple of the major magazines and yours was at the top of the list of course. My brother left me his Honda Civic when he went off to college and it already has a B18B swap from an Acura Integra. I'm not sure what else he has done to it other than some bolt-ons but it is pretty fast. The guys I hang out with keep telling me to get big cams to add horsepower. Is this true? How do I measure that? Will this hurt the motor in any way?Aaron Carney Toms River, NJ
A.Personally, we'd pick some nice booby magazines over our own, but we do appreciate your support. LS motor swaps in Civics have become so common that we barely notice them anymore. Your brother was smart, though, because that's a pretty strong platform to work off of. Choosing the proper cam is a touchy subject. A cam is usually measured by two of its characteristics. First, the duration, which is how long the cam lobe keeps the valve open for. Then the lift, which is how big the cam lobe opens up the valve. Of course, it would seem as if bigger is better in both cases because you'll have more fuel and air hitting the combustion chambers which should result in a giant horsepower bump. Not so true, unfortunately. If you're planning on driving on the street, a big cam will affect your idle and gas mileage. Look for something in the mid-200 duration with 10mm lift. With a huge cam, expect your car to die every once in a while. For a trailer queen racecar, you should be able to get away with much bigger cam measurements. However, don't forget that you'll have to tune the ECU or fuel management to compensate for the new cams. Also, cam gears are always an option when trying to extract more power through timing. Remember that different duration, lift, and cam gear timing will change your results drastically. Some might provide plenty of low end power and then die out at the top or vice versa. When ordering your cams, make sure you tell the company exactly what you plan on doing with your car so they can recommend the proper ones to you.
Q.Hey, SR20DET people. I'm so happy to see that JDM Wong converted over from the Honda crowd. It seems like your whole staff is a bunch of Nissan-lovers now. I have a really quick question that hopefully won't take up much of your time. I have a '91 Nissan 240SX coupe with a redtop SR20DET motor. I was reading on some message boards that the stock head gasket is made out of paper. That's crazy. Why would they use paper? Anyway, I wanted to switch it out for a metal one but noticed that there are different sizes measuring from 1.1mm on up. Can you tell me which one to get? Other than an intake, exhaust, and boost controller my car is pretty much stock. Thanks.James GomezHouston, TX
A.Sadly enough, you read correctly. The stock head gasket on the SR20DET really is paper. But it's not as bad or thin as a sheet of notebook paper-it's actually fairly thick and can withstand some abuse. However, when you get a chance we highly recommend that you switch it out for an aftermarket metal one. The thing is, you don't want to wait for your head gasket to get damaged before you replace it. You're going to have to deal with all these overheating issues and face the possibility of warping your head. If your car is stock, and you plan for it to remain that way for a while, then we suggest that you go with a 1.1mm or 1.2mm gasket. The measurement is for the thickness of the gasket. The thinner ones will affect your compression ratio, but not by much. If you're planning on hitting high boost or swapping in a massive turbo, we'd say to pick up something closer to the 1.8mm range to lower the compression ratio and avoid potentially damaging the pistons. You should find a reputable shop to do the work for you because it's a pain in the ass and takes a long time. So long that we don't even like to do it on our own cars and probably wouldn't if we didn't have to. Because the process takes so long expect the labor charges to go through the roof.
Q.Your magazine rocks. I can't go through a month without reading the issue at least five times. I think you should come out with a weekly magazine or something like Sport Illustrated so I don't have to wait to see what you guys are up to all the time. It's sad, but I have to admit that I'm borderline infatuated with the Super Street staff. Much props to what you do, however you manage to do it. I have a '95 Honda Civic EX that has minor mods done to it. Nothing crazy like a turbo kit or anything like that. I was thinking about getting an upgraded cam for my D16 motor and was wondering if I needed to upgrade the valves and valve springs at the same time. Do the springs add any power? I'm not too familiar with the internals of an engine so whatever you can do to point me in the right direction would be appreciated. Thank you.Jerry GallagherVia Internet
A.If you're just going for mild power upgrades, you probably want to avoid pulling off your head. So that means no new valves for you. Later on down the line, if you decide to stay with the single-slam and want to extract some power out of the head, then we'd say to go for the new valves. As for valve springs, it really depends on what size cam you get and how high you rev the motor. Generally, a mild street cam won't need upgraded springs. However, sometimes Honda owners happen to hit high rpms because of the engine's revving capabilities. It must be something about not taking the foot off the gas pedal. That's very dangerous if a valve floats and can cause some serious damage to the valve train. Stiffer springs would definitely help keep the valves in check. However, don't look to gain any horsepower. In fact, we've been told that really stiff springs will rob you of some horsepower because of the friction they cause. So make sure to avoid getting any race version or dual-valve springs for your street application. An upside is that you can swap these out without pulling the head off if you have the proper tools.