When does one need an adjustable cam pully?

[johnny27]

I have a 1.4 sr nova, with usual mods weber carb, 4-1 manifold, exhaust system and a kent AST2 295deg cam.
I shall soon be fitting a gasflowed 1300 head, prob is that it is very high compression, it had to be skimmed down alot when it was one my 1.2T40 to aid compression because of the larger combustion chambers in the 1300
So i'm leaving the head away to a engineer to check the usual things like valves and mating face, and he'll do the maths and let me know if i have enough clearence on my 1.4

So question is, when i fit the high compression head along with the AST2 installed, would i benfit from an adjustable cam pulley. I've heard before that you can get better power with one, if your engine has good compression ratio?
Also would I be able to adjust the pulley myself by taking the nova for a spin each time adjusted, so i can hit the rite power, or is it a specialist job only?
As you see i don't know alot about these pulleys. Thanks

[Stuart]

a red pulley gives you more peak power and a blue one gives you more torque......

lol
you "need" one to set the cam timing if the aftermarket one dosent work on the existing fixed timing. Also its not that good to setup a cam on hydraulic lifters as they compress etc and wont be that accurate.
in all honesty you dont "need" one as dan had to replace his verneer recently and has fitted a std pueely on for now and there is no change in performance and also the verneer was on 0 deg anyway lol

[johnny27]

thank you very much Stuart, you never fail with your wealth (sp?) of nova knowlege, much appericated.

[Mike]

thank you very much Stuart, you never fail with your wealth (sp?) of nova knowlege, much appericated.

agreed, hes the man that can so to speak :D

[johnny27]

i presume then the verneer pulley needed on solid lifters, and crazy cam setup like 310 deg or more.
Is it also a more of a professional needed to set one up? I imagine it would be careful work as with the crazy cams leaving less valve clearence

[Stuart]

dont need to have a pro set it up lol.

you can use them on hydraulic profile cams but its best to simply set them up on std marks and then have the cam "swung" on the RR to find the best spread of power etc