Debunking the Competitor's 60 WHP Cam Claim

One of our competitors advertises a cam that allegedly makes 60 WHP more than the INTENSE™ Stage 3 Blower cam. Any gearhead can tell you that is an unrealistic expectation. 60 WHP improvement over a STOCK cam is certainly achieveable, but 60 WHP more than the cam used to power five of the top seven supercharged 3800 FWD cars is just not a believeable claim.

So we set out to see what could be learned in this area. All marketing wizardry aside, we analyzed every imaginable specification of the two cams side by side. Following is a summary of the data, comparing the INTENSE™ Stage 3 Blower Cam to the competitor's 60 WHP cam.

INTENSE™ Stage 3 Blower cam

is3_p1.jpg 1.08 MB

is3_p2.jpg 919.39 KB

is3_p3.jpg 927.78 KB

is3_p4.jpg 958.46 KB

is3_p5.jpg 951.31 KB

Competitor's Cam

xpz_p1.jpg 1.04 MB

xpz_p2.jpg 912.28 KB

xpz_p3.jpg 931.29 KB

xpz_p4.jpg 966.61 KB

xpz_p5.jpg 946.49 KB

	INTENSE™ Stage 3	Competitor's Cam
Duration @ .050" lift	222.2º/227.7º	216.0º/225.3º
Lift with 1.60:1 rockers	.540"/.550"	.564"/.533"
Lobe Separation Angle	115º	116º
Intake Centerline	111º ATDC	112º ATDC
Lobe Area	26.1/27.2 in.-degrees	26.6/26.8 in.-degrees

Duration @ .050" lift - We have 6.2º more intake duration, and 2.4º more exhaust duration.

Lift with 1.60:1 rockers - They have .024" more intake lift and we have .017" more exhaust lift. Their extra intake lift shortens the intake lobe base circle and requires the use of pushrods .050" longer than stock.

Lobe Separation Angle - We have 1º smaller LSA, which gives us slightly more valve overlap.

Intake Centerline - Installed 'straight up', their cam is retarded 1º more than ours. Advancing or retarding a camshaft provides for slightly better top or bottom end performance, but isn't really an advantage to either profile with powerbands as wide as these cams have.

Lobe Area - Overall lobe areas are similar, regardless of their claims about 'ramp rate technology'. In addition, this seems to go against some claims that exhaust flow must exceed intake flow by a certain amount, and that violating this 'rule' is bad for head gaskets. If anything, the competitor's cam has less of this allegedly critical parameter.

Real World Dyno Numbers

We wanted to cut right to the truth so we undertook the expense of purchasing the competitor's cam & pushrods package, installed it in one of our cars, then dynoed both cams under nearly identical circumstances. We used an engine with a completely stock bottom end, and made NO CHANGES OTHER THAN THE CAM between dyno runs. The car was tuned exactly the same, used the same unleaded fuel, ran on the same dyno by the same operator and had the same correction factor for each pull. Note: Each cam was run several times, but only the best dyno pull from each cam is being presented here.

Here's how the powerplant was set up:

Stock 8.5:1 L67 bottom end with 8.5:1 compression ratio and 115,000 miles

INTENSE Stage 3 CNC cylinder heads

MP112 supercharger with 2.70" supercharger pulley (~ 17 psi of boost)

24º BTDC ignition timing

Autolite AR94 Race spark plugs

10.6:1 air/fuel ratio

The red line is the INTENSE™ Stage 3 cam (baseline) pull, and it peaked at 397.9 WHP (~497 crankshaft horsepower). The blue line is the best competitor's cam pull, with a peak of 390.8 WHP (~489 crankshaft horsepower). The total loss was 7.1 WHP (~9 crankshaft horsepower), compared to the 60 WHP (~75 crankshaft horsepower) gain that is advertised.

We then conducted a second round of tests using a smaller supercharger. Here's how the second round of tests was performed:

Stock 8.5:1 L67 bottom end with 8.5:1 compression ratio and 115,000 miles

INTENSE Stage 3 CNC cylinder heads

ZZP Stage 4 M90 supercharger with 2.70" supercharger pulley (~ 11 psi of boost)

27º BTDC ignition timing

Autolite AR94 Race spark plugs

11.3:1 air/fuel ratio

These are the three strongest pulls for the INTENSE™ Stage 3 cam in this configuration.


These are the three strongest pulls for the competitor's cam in this configuration.



The blue line is the INTENSE™ Stage 3 cam (baseline) pull, and it peaked at 340.5 WHP (~426 crankshaft horsepower). The red line is the best competitor's cam pull, with a peak of 335.4 WHP (~419 crankshaft horsepower). The total loss was 5.1 WHP (~ 6 crankshaft horsepower), compared to the 60 WHP (~75 crankshaft horsepower) gain that is advertised.

All content and graphics are (c) 2004 INTENSE Enterprises, Inc.
http://www.INTENSE-Racing.com
Don't make excuses. Make horsepower.