I am putting together a new motor which is an ABA with 1.8 CIS head. I love the lopey idle of a 288 cam and I plan to port the head and run oversized valves but the ABA is a stock rebuild. I will also be running a ported intake with Polished Audi TB. Will I be unhappy with the 288? Should I settle for 280 or 276 instead? Thanks!
No one I know likes a lumpy cam after the first few weeks. CIS certainly will not. If the CIS is not happy, then the driver is not either.
Maybe because I'm old but I do not understand why people want a cam that is only good at high RPM's. None of us drive that way. Well, most of us don't. If you really want to have a lot of power, try a turbo.
As previously mentioned, it will come down to what you are looking to do with the car. If a track car or fun weekend ripper, sure, the 288 can be a blast in a light car. The CIS won't "like" it but can deal with the rough idle. Beware that with a lightweight flywheel, it's more prone to stalling... Now, if this is for anything close to a daily driver, I doubt you will enjoy it for long...
About 13 years ago I swapped an ABA tall block into my '83 GTI and ran CIS on the crossflow head. I heavily ported the head (early in my car modifying days) and was running the usual bolt-on's. My first cam was a TT 268, and in my opinion it was barely an improvement over stock... I went "big" on my next cam, with the TT 288 and HD springs. It idled pretty well, and certainly ripped up top to around 7200 where the hydro lifters had enough. In a gutted GTI (2042 Lbs. with driver) short ratio trans and lightweight flywheel, it was a blast!
Fast forward a little, and an engine builder commented that the 288 really wasn't meant for stock compression ratio and CIS. So I "downgraded" to a TT 276 and found it was a much nicer cam to live with. The idle was notably smoother, and power off the line was nicer (no more stalling). Top-end power was really pretty similar in my case, and the driveability improvement was worth any trade-off.
Exactly my experience on my first 76 Rabbit. It's just not fun driving a daily driver when the idle sucks and it does not really start running good until you are 4k and higher.
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