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Just wanted to make you aware of my recent experience with a cam from Tick Performance. In July I had their "TowMax Stage 2" cam installed in my truck, a 2004 Silverado 1500 with a 4.8. Their site claims that, compared to a stock cam, this cam will produce "expected" gains of 45-55RWTQ and 30-40RWHP. All I got from their cam was 13RWTQ and 23RWHP. I've attached my before and after dyno results to this post.
As you can see, my numbers are nowhere near even the low end of the range that Tick claims. This is marketed as a towing cam so the torque gain was especially disappointing, with 13FtLbs compared to their claims of 45-55FtLbs. It's also marketed as a cam that's supposed to make power "under the curve" -- yet, as you can see from my dyno sheet, it doesn't do that either. My gains were all at the upper RPM range.
In addition, the truck now idles poorly. It wouldn't idle at all as soon as the cam was installed (it had been a wonderful running truck prior to that) until the Tuner worked on the idle. Even with the best that the Tuner could do, the truck still surges at idle sometimes (I'm not talking ordinary cam lope, I'm talking 300-400RPM swings in idle speed. Surging).
Lest you think something about my truck or the install process is to blame, my truck has 118k miles and is in excellent condition. I spared no expense on the install process and had the cam professionally installed by a shop that has done over 250 cam swaps on LS trucks. I also had them install the valve springs and pushrods that Tick recommended, and I had them install a newly-rebuilt set of 706 heads at the same time. Then I had it tuned by the most respected tuner here in the Portland, OR metro area. The truck's only other modifications are a K&N cold air intake, and a custom dual exhaust with hi-flow cats and Flowmasters. It has stock exhaust manifolds. I informed Tick of all this when I bought the cam. The Tick salesman repeated that I should expect to see the gain numbers they were advertising on their website.
After the very poor dyno results, I called Tick to discuss the matter. Their response was to point out that their website says the expected numbers are "in a well-optimized setup." They claimed that phrase is supposed to mean that long tube headers are required to produce the gains they're advertising. However, their website says nothing about the need for long tube headers in the description of this cam: https://www.tickperformance.com/tick-performance-towmax-stage-2-camshaft-for-4-8l-5-3l-ls2-lq4-lq9-engines/
In summary, Tick's numbers for this cam are greatly inflated compared to the results I experienced. Their site claims that "Hundreds of hours were spent developing this camshaft to perform precisely the way we advertise." That is why I bought the camshaft. But it clearly did not perform the way they advertise. Buyer beware.
Last edited by Hardcourt; 10-27-2021 at 11:02 PM.
Reason: correcting a link
How much time did the tuner spend with the tuning itself? With a baby 214/224 .571"/.561" 114+4* camshaft it should be easy to lock down a rock solid idle especially with the factory throttle body and intake. If the tuner throws in a "canned" tune they always use for small grind cams it's not surprising the numbers are disappointing. In the three years I've been tuning my own truck I have flashed the PCM over 50 times mostly for performance parts changes and sneaking up on the timing. That said your tuner may have squeezed out every bit of power possible... but a lot of tuners do just the MAF scaling, idle & spark then load another customer on the dyno wash, rinse, repeat.
Completely agree with the above. And will add that you could definitely do a few things that would increase your HP numbers. Adding long tubes and getting rid of the flowmasters for a more free flowing exhaust. Is that worth another 30tq, its possible. But I would bet with the combination of some better components and making sure the tune is spot on you would be closer to the advertised numbers than you are now.
A poor idle with that camshaft tells me exactly where to start looking for the lost torque...
Not following you? I’m happy to hear suggestions.
As for the comments above about the tune, it is a full custom tune and he spent the better part of an entire day trying to squeeze every drop of power and torque that he could. As I mentioned, he is an extremely well respected LS tuner in this area.
As for the comments above about the tune, it is a full custom tune and he spent the better part of an entire day trying to squeeze every drop of power and torque that he could. As I mentioned, he is an extremely well respected LS tuner in this area.
Can we stop with 'respected' and 'respectable' as words to define your tooner with... At the end of the day, the respect a tooner commands is worth nothing. It is the performance and drive manners of the vehicle that matters.
That said, there are always other variables at play. Does the calibration software have the right ***** to turn to even allow it to be tooned correctly? Is Tick blowing smoke up everyone's *** about performance claims? Are you running the wrong hardware combination to allow these gains? Lots of questions to answer.
I agree as well.
I've seen some tunes from some "well respected tooners".
Some of them picked up quite a bit of power on the dyno with 45 minutes of datalogging and making changes.
Find someone in the area that can read the tune off and even better to get a quick datalog.
10-25-2021, 03:36 PM
Tick Performance exaggerated performance claims
