I have aquired a cam shaft from the normal dodgy internet source of parts. It is alleged to be a 'Piper fast road' camshaft for a Mk1 1800 GTI and I want to fit it to my '85 Mk2 GTI engine (EV I think) pretty sure this has mechanical tappets and not hydraulic. While the cam certainly has a Piper vernier pully attached to one end of it I am not so sure on the identity of the cam itself, as the numbers on it do not correspond to anything found on their website. And near the end of it it has 'Estas' (who I belive to be another camshaft maker) in the casting. Stamped in the end of it is '049J', 'JYM1', '3P 270ME', '102' and a '4' the 3P might be an 8P, this is not clear! or even BP Any ideas on what it is? with my current luck its a bogo stadard VW item!
BP270ME = Piper 270 Mechanical tappet. That should be on the end face of the cam, furthest from the pulley end. You'll need to test fit and check clearances. You might need to change a few shims, depending on how close it is to your old cam. It's easy to test if you've got mechanical tappets. Take the rocker cover off and have a look. If you have 5 bearing caps, it's mechanical. Should be at that age though, if it's the original head. Should be a good cam in that engine, provided it's in decent nick.
Piper cams used to be made from plasticine - Kent were always a better bet. Any ideas as to it's age, as I hear they are much better now?
Estas are a Turkish comany that make cams but not for general sale. They make cams for other comanys like Kent, TT, Piper and for motor manufactures too. Here's their web page with a little more info http://www.estas.com.tr/en/ Steve
049 denotes that the casting is for mech. tappets. The part number of the OE cams start with either 056 or 049. 056 was superseded by the 049 prefix due to a change of material spec although the profiles remained the same. JYM1 is a production code indicating year, month, day and shift . Hyd casting has 026 or 037 as id. 026 would be for 4 bearing heads and 037 for 5 bearing heads. The drawing that VW supplied for manufacture was for the 049 109 101J camshaft. Hence the "049J" ID for mech lifter castings. We never bothered to change it..... The 049J cam was used on the 1600 Golf 1 carb engine. The 056 equivalent was 056 109 101B.
I can't see a piper 270 offering much of a performance gain without supporting mods I have heard of quality issues with them too. I believe this is why the likes of TSR and Stealth do not supply them
Piper did have an iffy rep a few years ago, and I wouldn't have touched them. However, I've changed my mind. My track car has a piper 285 in it. It's done a few seasons of being driven hard, getting hot, and last time I looked it was in as new condition. They do seem to have sorted themselves out a bit. I think a 270 on an 8v would make a noticeable difference, especially if you tweak the fuelling to suit.
Thanks Mike. I work in this business and can vouch for Piper having resolved their quality issue years ago, and there's a bit of conversation above which is unfair on them due to people posting not necessarily being aware of this.
It takes a long time to shift a bad reputation, not so long to earn it. I'm very happy with the Piper Cam I've got, and would consider buying another, but I bet they never rushed to replace all the duff cams they shipped in the past, or fix the damage they caused.
I will add that my car has a permanantly tapping tappet, hot or cold it never changes, while it's not bad it also could do with new valve stem seals soon. So I plan on taking the head off and regrinding the valves, which would mean re-shimming the tappets anyway. This and the posibility of a worn cam has lead me to think about rebuilding the head entirely over winter. This just happend to be the only suitable cam on ebay at the time! So I am not actually looking for huge perfomance gains, or in fact any at all, so it suits me fine. I do have anoother question about it though.. It came with a vernier pully on it, a piper one with 4 spokes. However I can find no obvious marks on it to set the timing, just the scale and the pointer
It's easy enough, set the timing to equal lift @ tdc... you'll need a dial gauge to do this with a long pointer. Have a search in the 8v section, there's a thread dedicated to "how to"...
Ah well, if the head's coming off anyway, you could get it ported, new valve guides (if needed), and our tame head man can shim the cam up for you in the shed (he has the tools and lots of spare shims). See the group buy info in the paid members' section. With a ported head and that cam, you should be around 130 bhp.
Just on the subject. I have been inquiring into details about ported heads and cams and i guy from Midlands VW a tuning place near Stafford i think sent me this back.... "The cylinder heads on the mk2's are already very well ported as standard, the only increase will be minimal, maybe 5 hp if the head is done spot on, which in my opinion is little for such a costly upgrade. The cam will give another 5 or so, so realistically the upgrade may see 10 - 15hp, which isn't an enormous amount. The head and cam upgrade is likely to cost in the region of 1000 by the time you have finished, depending on the exact specs you go for. Not a great return for the money. You will no doubt find companies out there who will promise the earth, but ultimately they will fail to deliver. Short of a full on engine build, over bore etc, which will cost a few k you wont see any worth while increases from the original 8V set up, I would just stick to the original spec and have it set up right." Sound about right?
"WHAT A CROCK OF SH4T"!!!!!!!!!! A MK2 head is the same as all 8v, & 16v heads for that matter... FAR from "well ported" as standard! I just goes to show how much a "tuner" that makes a comment like that actually knows! A std 8v heads flows around 71-75 cfm (there's always a variation with production items) on the inlet side, and 44-45 cfm on the exhaust. When ported correctly, and still using the std valves, the inlet comes up to 88-90 cfm, and the exhaust to 57-60 cfm... both of which are large airflow increases in peak alone, plus the gains through the lift range during both opening and closing of the valve, and worth a lot more than 5hp! The same goes for a cam, a 270-ish duration has the potential to add around 8-10hp, a 280 degree cam around 10-12... both will however require additional parts to obtain the best from them, vernier pulley, c.r increase & correct setting up... but both cam & head will add a lot more than 10hp! "companies who promise the earth but fail to deliver"... stones & glass houses spring to mind there. Perhaps we've got ot all wrong with our engines... maybe all we really need is a "good" set up, a tweek of the mixture etc to bring our 8v's from 110 to 200hp! Anyone want to px an allen key for a full race head ? Dont let mis-informed fools put you off you goals.
... I guess the tuner was trying to push you towards an ABF or a turbo conversion then? Either that or GTI Engineering, David Vizard and Bill Blydenstein were just wasting their time for all those years....
Just got in from work, killing time with a cuppa! Anyway, what are YOU doing on here japcr&p boy!.... have you got bored with the Evo forum and come looking for some real kicks?
One part of that daft post was correct, and I have lost count of how many times I have had to say this to guys wanting more from their 'bargain' cars.. Get it all back to standard tune first and running properly and undoing the bodges of the past.. its often surpeising how much power can found by trying to catch the horses that have escaped over time! I ahve never tried porting though, but do have some underdstinging, but think I woudl want a spare EV mech head before I started! Or should I scrap my range rover and fit the 16v engine from that in the Mk2?
If you want to have a go at porting, then fair play to you, but I reckon there's only so many things you can fit in, and so many things you can spend the time to be an expert at. The man in the shed, Vagobonds, or Mr Hillclimber could all do you a head to suit your budget, provided you have some sort of budget to spend on it. So did you buy the cam? Is it the one RyanMac was selling - looks like a bargain to me. I told him it was too cheap It should be said though, that fitting a 2.0 16v lump will get you more power than you'll ever get from that 8v, for about the same money as a ported head and cam.
