Any one with AST2 cam?

[johnny27]

Bought a Kent AST2 cam for 1300 nova. Anyone have anything to say about them? Is there much of a power increase and is it lumpy ticking over? (gotta love that sound reminds me of MK2 RS2000 escorts in a rally) Cheers

[johnny27]

Oh and is it possible to change with the head still bolted on the car? Or do I need any special tools. Thanks

[Jim]

I dont have one myself, but have heard nothing but good things about the cam. It shouldnt be lumpy if set up properly. Dan, Mike Oxford and others have this cam and both rate it very highly.

Jim

[Snowface]

i've got this cam in my 1.3 and its v.good. laods of pull at 2900rpm upwards.

New springs and followers are highly reccommended (get the whole cam kit) so you need the head off to do this.

i'm gonna be using this cam in my 1.6 when its going.

tick over can be a bit eratic when using a twin-choke carb, but when i changed to 40's it ticked over as sweet as candy.

i drove mine with twin choke carb (2e3 and 32/34 for over a year with the tick over set at 1700rpm.

maybe if i put bigger idle jets in it may of made a difference. The powerwas still there though even with twin choke carb's.

[Nick]

on the subject of cams.

I've heard a Kent 300deg cam is very very lumpy + erratic at idle ? or is this nonsense..

[Snowface]

the ast2 is 290 degree duration.

the ast3 is only 280 degree duration but the valve and cam lift is higher.

whats the code for the kent 300 degree one?

[Dan]

The ast2 kent cam is the 296 degree cam. With the moderate spec i run my engine at it purs like a kitten at idle although on a standard engine it would probably be a different story as snowface hinted at.

[johnny27]

Any suggestions to what power increase? My engine is as follows: twin 40 webbers, polished ported head + skimmed, 4 branch, and currently a mild lift cam.

[johnny27]

and also straight thru (no bafflers or cat) 2 inch exhaust system

[Snowface]

i'd say with all those mods already in place you'd be looking at 8-10bhp and possibly a bit more.

You'd loose a bit below 3000rpm and your max power will be in the 6-7k rpm band i'd imagine. But generally it will pull a lot better from 3k upwards.

[Barn]

cant wait :)

[johnny27]

I think the cam and the other mods will work great. At present the car has ALOT of accerlation and revs out to 8500rpm (btw i don't do this often) and the 4.18fd keeps the car reving high and the 14 inch wheels help alot with the get up to speed, so i'm glad its a good cam from 3000rpm up cause my car never stays at revs below 3000 becasue of the constant accerlation. Cheers guys for the info

[Philsutton]

i would not rev it anywhere near 8500rpm, from personal experience things will break.

[johnny27]

was silly of me, but my friend just wanted to see how quick the car was. How's the monster V8 project coming along?

[CP]

You can change cams in-situ with 2 special Sykes Pickavant clamps. These clamp the valve springs down on the 2 cylinders that the cam lobes are opening the valves of so you need the engine set to TDC.

AST2 cams are about as good as you can get for any Nova engine. You wont need to be anywhere near 8500 ( i doubt you got that high -what rev counter were you using?) with this cam for max power - 7500 should be plenty

[johnny27]

I watched the revs on my digi dash goto 7500rpm and still was reving quite a bit more past the redline and still was'nt valve bouncing, so i'm 99% sure it was around 8500rpm. As i said its quite easy for this to happen because the car picks up speed and accerlation so quickly.

[Aragorn]

i'd imagine you would snap rockers or throw a rod at anything much over 7500 on a std engine

dighdash starts flashing at 7k what speed did u take it to in what gear

if u were to give me the exact tire size and box type i'd be able to tell u what rpm you were at

[Snowface]

you's need to know what speed he was doing to get the exact rpm i think.

still anything over 7-7.5k and ur hydraulic lifters will start to haggle you.

8.5k i v.much doubt. perhaps ur rev-counter needle is in the wrong postition.

[johnny27]

not sure what speed i was doing, was in 2nd gear though. Was watching the revs on the digidash reach the redline and i continued more, juding by the revs i was doing past the 7.5 redline and i was going at least 2.5 seconds after 7.5 the revs where still going higher, so gotta being doing 8500 rpm cause it would def reach that past the 7500 redline after 2 seconds more.