In October 1998 I purchased a 1992 Corrado SLC from a private party. It had already been equipped with a Neuspeed P-Chip, a K&N cone filter, EIP port and polished throttle body, and a stainless steel Autotech exhaust. I felt that the car was pretty quick (a lot faster than my 95 Jetta 2 liter was), but it kind of ran out of steam over 5000 rpm. I decided, after a lot of research, to have a set of Schrick 268 degree cams installed.

I contacted Todd Sager at Air & Water Enterprises about doing the work. I had seen a lot of folks talk about Todd, and his Corrado had already taken on a lot of mods that I was interested in doing. In order to take advantage of the cams, I also bought a specially tuned Garrett chip programmed for the cams, and some heavy duty inner valve springs (sourced from a TDI motor) to allow for the increase in redline, which wound up at 7200 rpm.

Since I lived in Boston, and Todds shop is in Philadelphia, I made an appointment pretty far ahead of time to let me make the appropriate accomodations. The drive down to Philly was rainy, but I made it in 5 hours and averaged 23.6 mpg. The next day, I made it to AWE at about 8:15 and chatted with Todd about the work, and some other random stuff. I left for awhile and returned at about 1pm, and stayed to watch Todd and Ben work their magic on my motor.

Unfortunately, when he took the intake manifold off to get at the cams, Todd noticed that the guides for my timing chain were worn almost completely! This would require more work, to be completed later because Todd didn't have the parts to do it on hand. Whatever, I made a note to have it done when I got home and watched with interest as Todd replaced the valve springs and put the cams in. I had never seen the internals of a VR6 before, and seeing it made me glad that I decided not to install the cams myself!

When the job was complete, Todd took the car for a test drive to make sure everything was okay. It was, and I paid my bill, then took off like a kid heading to the tree on Christmas morning. Unfortunately for me, it was rush hour and I spent 45 minutes in stop and go traffic. This gave me a chance to see how the car idled. In fact, it idled just about as smoothly as it did pre-cams, and hovered right around 750rpm. Since the ECU 'learns' your setup, it takes 4 or 5 cold starts to make sure the cams and chip are fully 'doing their thang'. My trip home to Boston the next day was cold start number 3, but already the added power was intoxicating! I averaged 21.5 mpg for the trip home, which saw some A/C usage in traffic and some trips to the redline to feel the new power.

After driving some 1500 miles on the new setup, I am very impressed. Unfortunately, the repair of the timing chain and guides brought about a rebuild of the lower end of my motor, so it is still breaking in, but I am so happy with the effects of the cams. I feel a difference (although it doesn't show on the dyno) in the motor at about 3500 rpm, and from 4500 to 7000 the engine pulls like a pitbull on crack! The bottom end feels like it was previously, sort of weak until 3000 or so. Dyno results show an approximate 30hp gain at 7000 rpm with the 268 cams and Garrett chip. I can say that the power is still strong where the old cams left off.

Multiply the numbers by 1.15 to get the corrected crank hp. Not a big total change but look at the power increase in the high rpm range. Incredible!

	Suggestions related to the web site should be sent to the webmaster. Copyright © 1999 CCA