RE: Does a Schrick cam work? - Answer

["Bruce Bell" <bbell04@ibm.net>]

Nice post Alan,

Just a couple of comments.

You didn't mention which Schrick you installed. 268, 272, 276?

I'm surprised at your idle being rough. My 4kq  idles quite smoothly at
5300' with the Schrick 272. I noticed Ned's 4kq with the 276 idled rough in
Steamboat, but that's at 8000'. You mentioned spark timing was set at 6 deg.
atdc. I presume your distributor has both the vacuum advance and retard
canisters. If so, you may find a smoother idle by switching to a later
distributor with advance only vacuum and use 6 deg btdc. [I wonder if you'd
need the ICU too?] This really helped the idle on my '81 Jetta with hot cam.
Effects of air leaks are magnified when a performance cam is installed,
careful checking here could improve the idle as well.

As a side note: I think you mislabeled cam advance and retard in your post.
Advance helps low end torque and retard promotes higher speed torque.

Thanks again for the post.

Bruce