Porsche 356/912 Camshaft Grinds

LN Engineering offers a wide selection of custom camshaft profiles designed to work with engines from 1500cc to 1925cc for both street and track. All our camshafts are ground on 100% new camshaft blanks by Dema Elgin at Elgin Cams to our specifications. We have four grinds to choose from:

Torquer: The Torquer camshaft is equivalent to the “Maestro” grind. Works with 1500 and 1600 cc engines. When paired with our 1883cc engine, peak power is produced by 5000 rpm.

Performer: The Performer camshaft will make power up to 7000 rpm with a 1720cc 86mm big bore kit and 6000 rpm with an 1883cc (90mm) or 1925cc (91mm) Nickies machine-in big bore Nickies kit. Ideally you would use a set of 40mm Solex or Weber 40 IDF carbs when building your Porsche 356 or 912 engine. Be sure to download our “How to Hot Rod your Porsche 356” article below for more on optimizing your engine combination.

Performer Plus: The Performer Plus camshaft give up a little bit of torque on the bottom end for an extra 500 rpm on the top end and should make peak power by 6500 rpm on an 1883 or 1925cc build.

Vintage Race: Our vintage race Porsche 356 and 912 grind was designed for one of our race customers who has campaigned his 356 for many years using our 1883cc Nickies big bore kit. With race ported heads, race exhaust, and a minimum of 10.5:1 compression ratio run on race gas, this grind will provide excellent torque and top end performance to 7000 rpm. Ideally you would want to run about 11:1 compression but we have had customers run more compression and also turn the engine at higher rpms, but this will put more stress on engine components and shorten engine lift significantly, so you must take this into consideration when determining your time between overhaul and what components are replaced or upgrading during engine overhaul and reassembly.

Performance will depend on choice of carburation, head work (porting), compression ratio, exhaust, and tuning. Your results may vary as a result so the information provided is just a general guideline. Most people choose either the Torquer or Performer based on their driving habits, so if you don’t rev your engine over 5000 rpm ever, there is no point to putting in a larger camshaft than the Torquer in your Porsche 356 or 912 engine.

Porsche 356/912 Camshaft Lifters

All our Porsche 356 and 912 camshafts must be installed with new or reground lifters. LN Engineering uses and recommends OEM replacement lifters manufactured to factory specifications and are compatible with our camshafts.

Porsche 356/912 Camshaft Installation

1. Make sure camshaft and related gears, lifters, and rockers are clean prior to installation.
2. UseDriven Engine Assembly Grease on all mating surfaces including cam bearing surfaces, lobes, lifter faces, both ends of the pushrods.
3. Make sure that when installing your camshaft (TDC on cylinder #1) the timing marks line up between the cam gear and the crankshaft gear.
4. Use care installing the camshaft and related components; if anything binds or is stiff, check for proper clearance before continuing.
5. With the engine at TDC, install the distributor drive, check end play on the drive gear, and secure the distributor properly to prevent it from popping out.

Porsche 356/912 Camshaft Break-In

If you are rebuilding your Porsche 356 or 912 engine and only doing a top end rebuild (not replacing your camshaft and lifters), a break-in oil is not required. However, for proper break-in after installation of a new camshaft, do not allow your engine to idle below 2000 RPM for the first 15-20 minutes of use. We recommend using Driven GP-1 30WT break in oil or 607-7177 15w40 engine oil. For best results, we recommend changing your engine oil and filter after camshaft and lifter break-in. We recommend going straight to 607-7177 or Driven’s HR series of conventional engine oils. You do not want to use any semi-synthetic or full synthetic oil during engine break-in or any oil with friction modifiers such as moly for the first 3000-5000 miles.

Porsche 356/912 Camshaft/Lifter Valve Adjustment

We recommend using factory valve lash specifications with stock or aftermarket aluminum pushrods; if running chromoly pushrods adjusting the valves using the “zero” lash method can be used. The heel method is a simple way of adjusting the valves on your Porsche 356 or 912 engine. The theory is that if the valve on a given cylinder is at the max lift (i.e. the nose of the cam), the other valve is at the heel of the cam lobe and the valve at the heel is adjusted. This works as VW and Porsche four cylinder pushrod engines have four camshaft lobes. One lobe operates two cylinders. When the #1 exhaust valve is fully open, you can adjust the #3 exhaust valve because it is on the heel of the cam. To adjust the #1 exhaust valve, rotate the engine 180 degrees and the #1 exhaust valve can then be adjusted. All valves can be adjusted using this method as when one valve is on the nose of the cam, the other valve sharing the lobe is on the heel.