randeez
Full Access Member
Great points. I am a big believer in VVT. Do you know if experienced tuners have determined where to set the VVT advance/retard points on the 5.3 to optimize performance?
The factory utilizes VVT to "simulate" egr function in midrange/cruise scenario. for the after market it's really not all the complicated. old school cams you could get away with advancing the cam to make more torque at low rpm OR retarding the cam to make more horsepower at the top end. with the VVT actuator you can do both, If you do a cam swap it is recommended/required to install a cam limiter, which will restrict retard to 16 (or 22 degrees). For GM VVT you can only retard the cam, so VVT cams are ground at a "parked" position usually at 7 or 8 degrees advanced and from there you can retard back to -7 (or further if you use 22* limiter different years not really important). I supposed you could try to emulate GMs strategy of an egr but for any type of performance gain just scrap it, you would probably need countless hours on a dyno to truly optimize a VVT cam but a simple somewhat linear sweep starting about 3500 rpm up to 7000rpm adding in half a degree every 300 or so rpm is what seems to work well
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