Cam questions

[KAPPS]

I recently purchased a Lingenfelter GT-12 cam, the 3 bolt conversion kit, heavy duty timing chain, hardened pushrods and the BTR .660 platinum valve springs. I am looking for header ideas (I already have the Magnaflow competition cat back system on) but what I should do for long tubes and weather or not to go to a high-flow cat or just have the pipe extensions. Also any tips on breaking in the cam if necessary or any other tips in general. thanks!

[Jnelly93]

High flow cats will help keep the noise down significantly I have a Stage 3 Texas Speed Cam Flowmaster headers and Flowmaster Outlaw exhaust and it's stupid loud and I have obnoxious cabin drone. As long as your engine is broke in the cam should be fine I would give it about 100 miles before I really hammered on it just to make sure everything was working properly together.

[christianchevell]

also high flow cats are required to make the exhaust stink less, come with o2 provisions, and make the cars exhaust legal. I would recommend using driven racing br30 for a break in oil, one filter and 8 qts for initial break in al least. On my new engine I am doing it twice at least with a change at 500 miles also, but mine is a complete new engine. Many will say don't believe that you have to do a break in for a roller cam. And these would be the same experts who use scrote motor oil and eat a cam. With the high pressure from the springs you are going to have to have in hand spare springs for they will need rechecking every twenty five thousand miles or so.... Because the list we use is far more than what used to be the performance norm for a BBC or SBC...in the .500 range for a rocking racing cam....

The springs your buying have a titanium retainer and are made of steel along with chromium and silicon added and do like any high performance spring take a lot of abuse.... And can break, and have to many members unfortunately often from over revving due to missed downshifts. Hopefully you can find someone competent to do a custom remapping of the AFR and do a good dyno tune along with removing annoying things like torque management, etc....

I run LS30 oil as I know my engine is modified beyond the original specs of the garbage people will run in a ls engine. I recommend going to driven racings websites and reading some articles and bulletins, and maybe research as I did to learn they made a break in oil that had a 400% reduction of cams lost breaking in on LS engines for Nascar, and how they are the oil recommended by Moses, Jesus, and anyone including the gods of every part in your engine basically and its even included with crate engines by some large places and insisted apon to ever dream of a warranty....

Anyway some would say oh...I am the driven racing oil freak, yah well, I research and know my crap before I destroy it....lol.

You should be buying some new ls3/ls7 lifters for that cam most likely as the age of your may be too much..... depending on the mileage? ..... And then that would require pulling the heads. Your stock fuel system should be fine, I use stainless power headers and HFC's I got from Maryland speed. And I would highly recommend changing the oil pump to a higher volume as we are low pressure in the ls3 as you have to drop the pan to do a timing chain which is usually a katech c5r for most, and switching to the LS2 dogbone timing chain dampener instead of the stock ls3 which sucks and breaks....

[Josh @ Spartan LSX]

If you want something affordable that works great, look into the Texas Speed headers for the 5th Gen's. The absolute best headers you're gonna find for $500.

If you want top shelf quality in every faucet, buy Kooks or American Racing.

Using cats is up to you. FWIW, one thing I like about the Texas Speed system is that their connection pipes are actually dummy cats so the car will still pass a visual inspection.