97 960 cams

Just bought a 97 960 wagon with bad head gasket. worth putting 92 960 cams in while doing job? May do bigger exhaust later but otherwise stock, with auto. trans. I already own the cams.

Do the ecu's swap as well? I'm not sure the cams would work well with the ignition map you have currently - the curve won't be aggressive enough and it'll likely feel pretty soggy on the bottom end.

Before you start to think about mods, take the head off and check it.

B6304S 'leaking HG' = warpped head ( almost 100% assured).

These don't just blow HG's for no reason, usually lack of cooling system maint, too much heat, blown radiator, old therrmosat, etc. If there's a lot of white stuff from leakage around hoses and conections, you are most likely looking at a top-down cooling system re-furb, too.

Seen so many like this, probably more than two dozen last fall before I bought the '97 960 I have. Most owners don't do maint on a 960 like religion, which it is one of those cars that need god-like treatment.

As far as the cam's, having had a '94 965 with the "More HP cams", I would not try and go backwards to a motor that was far inferior with those cams, and lacked the low end torque the 960 needs, so I personally would not even think about it. The later 960 motor has more power than the early one anyway, the power 'under the curve' is greater with HP plus torque at much lower rpm's., but do what you want.

I swapped the 92-94 cams in my old '96. You still have nice pick up and a better top end. I didn't notice a real issue with the way they interacted with the ignition maps, it also still passed emission with flying colors. While I never drove my '96 with the stock cams(I bought it with a snapped timing belt) I've driven a few stock 95+ 960s at my old job for comparison.

My car definitely responded better as far as drivability on the low end after I got the performance chip from Fred, however, the stock ECU wasn't awful and there was a definite difference up top.

960 cams

Can I get more info of Fred's chips?

Well, you have to send the ECU to Sweden. I have a spare ECU you can borrow from me with a core charge. Shipping cost me like 15-20 bucks to Sweden. I'm not sure what it costs coming back. I'd contact them to get ECU pricing. My pricing was different because I was a guinea pig and purchased the loaner ECU to facilitate better convenience in the US. You can play with different parameters. For instance, I got mine with a 7000 RPM redline. Low and mid torque is the biggest improvement I noticed with a little more oompf up top. I can't say how big the difference was between a hot cam stock ECU and the chip vs. the 181 cam ECU and the chip, but I definitely felt it. I also noticed it seemed to idle a bit better, so perhaps those maps are slightly different between the two.