308 p6 cams

Someone with a good engine set up with P6 cams and high compression on the street should make a video to clear this "unweildy on the street" mess up once and for all. Let's get someone out on the street stuck in some traffic OR see if the thing will drive like a normal 308 when shifting at lower rpm and only relying on that lower power band.

 

Part of the problem is its such a small displacement that mind blowing torque without a power adder is near impossible, especially in a 2 valve application and short intake runners. The displacement and short runners all point to high rpm performance, add P6 cams and it rounds out the package....up in the red zone.

 

It will work ok if properly set-up. It won’t work as well as stock cams down low, efi would help a lot but even with that you’ll be down 10+% on hp below 3000. If I had a 2v car and a set of P6 cams kicking around or knew of a set I could get at a decent price I would put them in and the car would be faster, but I would be shifting about 1000-1500 rpm higher than befroe the swap or the car would be slower.

The point I was making was that if I was having a set of cams ground, I would not be looking at P6 specs for the street, the track of anywhere else because there are much better options….but I would much sooner have P6 cans than late US carb or CIS cams.

 

yup.

 

So to simplify a bit. As opposed to peak power being at 6500-6600rpm, P6 peak power will be near 7800rpm+ and power below 3-4000rpm will be down 10ish% commpared to stock which may make it more of a monster on the street. For me, this doesnt sound too terrible as I drive the car over 3-4k rpm for most of my driving other than cruising on the freeway at 3300rpm.

 

I see in the ads section there is a set of Webcams 2V euro performance cams for $3700 . Does anyone have any details or experience with them ?

 

WEB is the place to go, Ill be sending mine there. For a 2 valve 12 cylinder application I was quoted $1800 to weld and regrind my 4 cams to whatever profile I ask.

 

I asked Dema E to give me the best street regrind he could (He had a good rep for 308s when these cars were current). I couldn't be happier with the result.... and the price. But note my car is desmogged and has other mods which I presume he took into consideration.

'82 2V

 

That's about right. It's not so bad as long as you can get the carbs working right down low so it's not coughing and stumbling.

 

How would a set of these work in a 2V injected engine? Would the flow through the metering unit make them useless because of limited airflow?

 

The metering unit wouldn't make the cams useless....the cams would make the metering unit useless. CIS can not deal with reversion in the intake track and requires cams with very little overlap to work properly and the work is even the early/euro carb cams are way too much for the metering unit to deal with.

The reversion is the same reason the carb have trouble wigth the P6 cam at lower rpm.....the air ends up going both ways through the venturi, the velocity goes up and down and the jet that is right at say 1000 is dead wrong at 1500 and they are both wrong at 2000.

This is a job for EFI and electronic ignition control which together can pretty easily tame a big duration cam.

 

Kermit claimed he had a CIS running pretty good with early cams after playing with it. Dont know all what he did exactly, but someone out east once claimed to have one Kermit set up like that, said he had 230 at the wheels IIRC? Nothing confirmed though.

Actually, IIRC, I believe he ran a CIS exhaust cam with an early carb intake cam. He also did some flow bench work on the CIS unit intake, and opened up the intake going into the plenum. And I believe he bumped the CR a point or so. Its been a long time, but I think he said the reversion wasnt too big a deal because the unit was quite a ways downstream of the throttle plate. No way it would work with anything hotter though, he admitted that much.

But of course, for anyone trying it it would be like starting over from scratch. It would take a lot of experimenting to figure it out to the point where he left off. It works good with a blower up to a point though. Wouldnt you agree Mark?

I feel the carbs and hot cams are great if you like the car the way it was meant to be. But if your really looking for big performance gains, and if you really dont care if the motor looks stock, EFI and a blower are the only way. Or one hell of a custom mechanical injection system.

 

I'm sure you could run more cam with CIS....the question is how much and how bad does the idle/off idle get. Kermit had to turn up the idle to get the engine he built to run if I recall correctly....and honestly I just don't see the point unless you live in CA with the smog nazis so you have to have the OEM crap.

As far as hot cam and carbs, I think calling it "the bst they could do" is more accurate than "the way it was meant to be". It works, but tunignthe bottom end to be useable is hard and keeping it tuned is harder becasue the carbs just don't work well with a set up like that so changes in air temp or pressure tend to take what was ok yesterday and make it horrible tomorrow....so you mess with it.....then you mess with it the next time you drive....then you efi it and just drive

 

Mark, Art- I had a Euro 308 GTS while stationed at RAF Lakenheath in the early 80s, and it had the factory Euro 285 hp package. The thing was really quick. Any idea what cam that was running and other changes necessary for the 30 hp boost? Back then, I just owned and maintained them and did not do too much research. Eventually the car burned an exhaust valve, luckily with no catastrophic results, but I wonder if P6 cams were fitted?

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

That sounds like the "sprint" package they sold in the US which would be P6 cams....285 seems optimistic though.

 

Mark- It probably was optimistic, but that was what the factory claimed. Everything else looked pretty much stock, but I suppose the Webers would have been rejetted. It pulled pretty well in a Euro spec car with no A/C. Gearbox was stiff as all get out, though. Did not have the good synthetic gear oils we have now.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

How was low rpm driving? Livable?

 

John- Yes, very livable. Had excellent torque, probably helped by relatively light weight. Idled smoothly and no overcammed effects at low speed and open throttle. Brakes worked fine, too, sometimes an issue with high performance cams producing little vacuum. My car, 25125, a 1978 GTS, is now somewhere here in the States because I sold it to Steve Forristall in 1983. It had the factory single distributor, pointless electronic ignition, which really worked well. Changed plugs regularly, but they did not really need changing at the Ferrari recommended interval.

Taz
Terry Phillips
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While the HP you speak of is what Norwood and others suggested, 280+ HP, without knowing for sure its just shooting in the dark to guess what you might have had for cams.

FYI for anyone interested, factory P6 cams have "P6" and the specific part number stamped into all 4 cams. These numbers are easily seen on the cam shank between the cam seal and the belt sprocket the same as any other factory cam. Correct numbers are 107188, 189, 190, 191.

 

Some (useful IMO) photos taken from older P6 cam threads for reference:
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Steve- That is very interesting. It shows a much more gradual change to maximum lift, but you can see the area under the curve where lift is occurring is much larger. This design would appear to allow for higher revs because of the gradual ramp, assuming the valve springs could keep up.

No mistaking the two after seeing the photos. The engraved "P6" does not hurt, either.

I do not remember if my car had a rev limiter or not. Too long ago.

Would imagine my burned valve was caused by the sodium-filled exhaust valves fitted to the 308. At least, I think they were.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I've never heard of sodium valves having any issues with burning a seat any more readily that soild valves. What sodium valves are famous for is breaking right where the head is welded onto the stem. The valve head dropping into the cylinder is what makes sodium filled valves exciting.

 

Brian- Mine just burned, luckily. Could not even tell it except for a very slight spitting miss at idle. Compression test found it.

Taz
Terry Phillips