Thanks! I was pretty sure it would be fine to leave the cam gear alone after reading around, but more feedback is rarely a bad thing.Chuck W wrote: ↑04 Jul 2021, 21:19
That picture with the engine running and the VVT disconnected was the first test to make sure the COP conversion worked. I went back and finished the VVT wiring and hooked it all up.
We've been running this engine on a distributor and no VVT control for almost 3 years now (almost 30K miles). All I did was set the exhaust VVT pulley properly when I replaced the timing belt during the engine swap, and left it alone. Also flashed the first "tune" at that time. Never really messed with it much since and haven't had any issues. (The trans was becoming more problematic, which is why that was finally replaced a couple weeks ago).
Exhaust VVT is primarily for emissions and a wee bit of economy, but limited performance gain, but I wanted to get it working, and it was easy enough with the proper bin from VAST (Working off of the rear O2 sensor circuit), and modding the ECU was easy.
As long as your cousin sets up the VVT pulleys properly during a timing belt installation, and everything is timed properly, he shouldn't have any issues with just leaving the intake solenoid unplugged. I'm not familiar with the ME7 stuff at all, however.
I *think* someone may make block off plates, but I'm not 100% certain. I may makes some up for a couple future builds I have that may, or may not, utilize the VVT. (I have an '04 R motor in my garage to mess with).
M4.4 makes it easier to add VVT control, but unfortunately I haven’t seen anything about adding intake VVT control to ME7 cars. Snabb and a couple other businesses do make those block off plates. People are all over the place with swapping the dual VVT motors into single VVT ME7 cars, but I don’t see the issue. Some say no intake VVT might lack power, yet the head will flow better than single VVT. And with how little the intake timing is adjustable, I don’t think it would be a concern.
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