Are cams and gears worth it?

Hello all,

New member here. I have a 2005 GT with 41,000 miles. The car is modified with a Diablosport 91 octane tune, K&N CAI, and Flowmaster exhaust.

I've been wanting to add some more things to the car. I started thinking on a supercharger but haven't been able to justify $4500+ in cost.

So I was considering 4:10 gears and some NSR cams for the sound. I would be able to do the cams myself, however the gears would be needed to be done by someone.

What would be the best cams for this application? Looking for good driveability. I don't plan on racing, just a fun cruiser. Also not looking to put long tubes on.

Thanks for your replies!

Part choice threads are not tech here. Moved

Gears yes, cams if for sound only then fine, blower best bang for the buck mod.

Plenty of info on these subjects on the board.

Cams alone NSR (Phase 1 and retuned based on what you already have) you might achieve 20 FWHP in reality on a good day. Cost $800. That's $40 per HP avg. That will be the limit.

A Roush super charger intro package from VMP (that you can grow with) is about $5700 with their tune if you have a hand held. An increase of roughly 175 at the Flywheel equates to about $30 per HP average. You can bump it up, add larger FI's, go E85, improve the HE removal system, etc. down the road for even more HP.

Unless you go DOB and can setup for about 4k+tune

Cams aren't bad but really only worth it with long tube headers from a power standpoint. If you do it piecemeal it's a little more affordable than a supercharger, that's how I've built my car so far. Some of the big name cams are a little obscenely priced though ($800 for cams is way too much IMO)

I would do long tubes before cams though.

What factory gears do you have?

Definitely save up for a DOB setup, if you leave the rest of the car stock your investment will be minimal compared to a crazy person like me. You can get a voltage booster for your stock fuel pump and not even crack open the tank, and leave the short block alone. Your car has low mileage so you're probably not driving it every day, should be very reliable for a long time with 8-9 PSI.

There's nothing better on the street than PD blower, especially if you use the big eaton from the old GT500's.

I have seen NSR cam + bolt on setups make 340whp-360whp on the forums, including myself, albeit I was on the lower end of that scale. With some port matched heads I bet you can get closer to 380whp which would make for a fun street car.

$800 for a pair of cams sounds expensive but Coyote guys have to spend double that because they have 4 cams. Longtubes and cams are definitely worth the money if you can do the work yourself.

The DOB route is a good one too. It allows you to piecemeal parts together so you don't have to burn $4500+ at once.

You can usually pick up a good set of used Hot Rod cams for well less than $800. Those would be my choice.

Thanks for all the replies!

Gear ratio is 3:55 with a 5spd.

The "old muscle car sound" was something I always liked. Thought it would be cool to have the same thing in this car. Used cams would be something to look at.

Ron said:

Thanks for all the replies!

Gear ratio is 3:55 with a 5spd.

The "old muscle car sound" was something I always liked. Thought it would be cool to have the same thing in this car. Used cams would be something to look at.

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Then do the cams and enjoy the old school sound. Cams are fun. Ran NSR's on my 2005 blower setup along with LT's and OR midpipe. The car sounded great.

I will tell you this. If you go with a mild NSR custom grind cam like the Detroit Rockers or the FRPP cams, to really hear the cam sound at idle IMHO you have to do away with the cats. LT's really enhance the tone as well and may help a little bit. Magnaflow street series axle backs was my choice on that setup in case you were to ask. When I added the LT's and lost the cats people really took notice.

If you are really interested in performance then gears and cams are not your best route. In my opinion cams are a waste of money unless you go for longer duration, high lift, springs and phaser limiters required cams. The rest of the NSR type cams are mainly for sound effects not performance. Gears are a good choice but headers are over rated, unless you want max performance. If you save up your money and piece together a DOB, setup you wont even have to change gears, 3.55's will work great with a PD type blower. Keep the boost down and get a good tune and you will be good to go. A DOB setup would probably not cost that much more then doing headers, cams and gears.

I went the NA route and everyone is right, it's not the best value compared to FI. That said, I don't have to have the fastest car, but I really wanted some gains while having a good sound. I put on Kooks LT headers on and an ORH and it sounds way better than I had hoped. Next I put in FRPP Hot Rod cams and they are a noticeable improvement. Didn't turn it into a beast, but at least now it continues to pull instead of going flat after 4,500. I get told routinely it is one of the best sounding cars around. This year I'll probably do gears, 3.73 and not 4.10.

I have a friend who put in Hot Rod cams and 4.10 gears (was 3.15 I think previously) in his 3V. Feels like my '12 did with its 3.73's though I only drove his car for about 30 mins with the new setup. Sounds nice with the exhaust he has on it. Almost like a stock car at WOT. His old setup would not run faster than 15's in a 1/4 because the gearing was soooo f@#$kin tall. Now the rear end will kick itself out if you aren't careful.

I have 3.55's in my car still and it's fine with the cams, although CMS's stage 1's are a bit milder than some of the others out there.

Also, high flow cats let the cam sound come through pretty well. I have my longtubes, catted shorty H and FRPP touring axle back (essentially a Borla Touring), it's a pretty mild axle back but the cams still sound nice at idle.

ghunt81 said:

I have 3.55's in my car still and it's fine with the cams, although CMS's stage 1's are a bit milder than some of the others out there.

Also, high flow cats let the cam sound come through pretty well. I have my longtubes, catted shorty H and FRPP touring axle back (essentially a Borla Touring), it's a pretty mild axle back but the cams still sound nice at idle.

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Do you have any issues with stalling? Do you have a custom tune or a canned tune? Thanks!

Ron said:

Do you have any issues with stalling? Do you have a custom tune or a canned tune? Thanks!

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You didn't ask me, but I'll chime in. With the Ford Hot Rods and 3.55 stock rear end it is zero issue. I have a tune by Lito (the horse whisperer) and there isn't a better tuner for a 3 valve. My car runs perfect from idle to 6,500+. It also is finally rid of the rev to the fucking moon on a cold engine for the first 30 seconds thank God too.

Phil1098 said:

This year I'll probably do gears, 3.73 and not 4.10.

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3.73 is good if you have taller than 3.55 from the factory and like to do cross country road trips. 3.73 is also good if you are building an autox car because 2nd gear will work out way better for you.


Otherwise 4.10. I would go 4.30 for a weekend car even if it goes on a 4-8hr trip once or twice a year.


I have had 3.73s on a NA 3v for a while now. As a matter of fact my car was born with 3.55. I am glad I was able to go on some long road trips with the wife but I see the difference [against 4.10s and 4.30s] every time I hit the 1/4 mile. Now that I have a big cozy SUV I might throw 4.30s in. And honestly if I could go back I would have saved the money and left the 3.55s alone and waited until now to do 4.30.

Gears and a custom tune for your mods would def wake the car up. The canned diablo stuff for 05+ is lacking imo.

Ron said:

Do you have any issues with stalling? Do you have a custom tune or a canned tune? Thanks!

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The ONLY time I ever have any weirdness with the driveability is in the first 30 seconds or so after a dead cold start (and TBH it was like that before I did the cams, I think the charge motion deletes are the culprit there).

And I also have a Lito tune. Bama is OK with basic bolt-ons, but after I did the cams it had a bouncing idle and they wanted me to do all this crap just to make logs and fix it. I talked to Lito and his baseline tune (no datalogs or anything) fixed that right out of the gate. He's a great guy to work with.

JeremyH said:

Gears and a custom tune for your mods would def wake the car up. The canned diablo stuff for 05+ is lacking imo.

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I've also wondered about the diablo and pre loaded tunes.

The DOB is interesting. I've thought about doing a DOB or Brenspeed's Throwback Paxton. But I'm becoming cheap in my older age.... And I can't see myself trying to piece together a DOB kit over time.

I just figured gears, set of cams and a tune would be fun for around $1500.