Originally Posted by
BenFenner JWT said that idle quality on the C3s will be "poor". They said power production with the C3 cams is severely lacking at low rpm and lacking at mid-range rpm.
The biggest cam JWT would recommend for the street was the C2 cam. I was very surprised when they said that. I thought the S4 cams would be the largest. They'd really recommend the C1 cam as the largest for the street, but if you really wanted to go nuts they said the C2 cams would be tolerable. (They also said if you have an automatic transmission you shouldn't think about any of the "C" cams.)
I had these same sort of questions when I bought my car from Dave Coleman. He drove it with the C2's and so did his GF around slow-mo Irvine CA traffic, the A/C is fully functional, etc. But he did have two "preset" tunes for the C2's, the best I can describe them as tune 1 is better for midrange and not as aggressive, tune 2 is max top end power. So obviously it worked for him on the USDM 9.8:1 motor.
DC said the idle was lumpy, but not at all in a bad way with the C2's. I still have the same "switchable" ECU in the car, running a JWT enhanced "stock motor" tune probably a lot like the POP (a guess, since it was custom, IDK). I guess I will find out, probably this Winter after I get the car through damn CT emissions testing "as is" - because NFW I expect it to pass with the bigger cams, it's borderline stock (fails on NOx and at the margin for HC). It seems I keep destroying cats with extended track use, probably because it runs a little rich up top and tends to light off some unburned HC's in the cat. AFR is around 12.0-12.2 6000-7500+ rpm.
My opinion aside, why would you go against the collective advice of Jim Wolf and Clark Steppler and do something they really don't recommend for the street? They're obviously not conservative, or they would not even call the C2's "streetable", but they do - with the right tune. It's obvious you can tune for a wider range sacrificing some upper end, OR tune to their strength, which is top end power. Not both. And most likely, the lower tune sucks for making more power, but may be marginally more drivable about town. Otherwise I doubt I would have this elaborate JWT 3-setting daughter board ECU in my car.
Check out the Green curve for typical I/H/E and stock ECU - sorry the quality isn't better. One chart they do not show here is stock cams and JWT tune with I/H/E etc. on a 10:1 which is what I run now. The second pic links to that. Note performance above 5500 is better than stock ECU considerably just in the flat curve from 6200 to redline at peak stock cam whp. Note that the C3 cams tested here are not on my car. But IIRC, this resting was done at JWT using their equipment and dyno.
The C2's are proven with a streetable tune, but look at their low end torque hit - not pretty. Personally I don't care because I would only want the power above 4k, I never spend any time below that when I am concerned about going faster. Also note that blue line is with tune, not without, but surprisingly the green C3 line
w/o JWT tune, i.e. stock ECU is not as bad as you'd expect, something I can't explain.
Either one bears out that from 3800-4000 rpm with stock tune or not, that's where you'd expect to see some benefit, and below that, not so good.
But both sort of defy "conventional wisdom" and I tend to agree if you haven't tried it with your motor, YMMV...