[Deego]

I got a standard 1.3l motor in my sierra.i can't afford getting a new motor so I was thinking of regrinding my cam to get more power out of my motor.will you know the difference in power at all I'm just wanting a bit of info about it.

[HarryHoudini]

In my experience all a good cam grind does is move the power band higher which in the case of a small motor in a 4WD is counter productive.
A bad cam grind will loose Torque and in some cases BHP as well so its a very iffy(IMO) mod unless the Cam grinder knows his stuff and has had lots of experience with a Sierra motor.

[shep]

The only way to cheaply improve the power of a 1.3 is to change the gearing. Nothing else will make a real difference and even if you get a real 10% power increase, 10% of stuff all is still stuff all.

[JrZook]

shep wrote:

even if you get a real 10% power increase, 10% of stuff all is still stuff all.

10% is 10%..... will be quite noticable especially if you start with stuff all

[zukmeista]

Bigger jets in carby + extractors & 2" exhaust + play with timing + check that when pedal is on the floor, throttle on carby is fully open.

[JrZook]

Zukmeista!

One of your more informative posts! Well done! Deego start with the stuff listed above before you think of cams. No point in getting it reground to chase more power it it isn't your primary restriction.

My old hardtop with a weber/extractors/exhaust/recurved dizzy laid out ~50rwkw on 235's and it was very pleasant to drive compared to a healthy bog stock engine when it came to hills, overtaking and towing.

[KEENSY85]

Run the dizzy further advanced ,and rev it to about 3gs to make sure when the vacuum advance kicks in it doesn't choke .I did that with a standard carb it went a lot better eats the fuel thou,it worked better on the old barina my wife and I owned it had a three speed auto we drove like manual thou LOL

[whincup]

definitely worth advancing the timing a few degrees, it makes a noticeable difference... and as said, the accelerator also. when i first got mine, foot flat was only worth about 3/4 at the carby. sorted that, and between those 2 ive noticed a big difference.

[Gwagensteve]

Deego, also check the condition of the plug leads. If they are stock or look old replace them. You'd b amazed how much "lost" power can be retrieved by replacing old plug leads.

As has been stated already, moving the power band up higher is generally a bad idea in a 4WD. However, a regrind that aims to increase peak torque (and lower it in the RPM range) will likely result in lower performance at high RPM.


Steve.

[Deego]

Thanks for that guys