high milage cam

[jesse121pm]

Hi I have a 2012 2ss I was wondering if it would be dumb in your guy's opinion to throw a cam in there. It has 92k miles and its a 6spd with an ls3. I just got the car not to long ago and I know the whole thing with "if youre worried itll break dont do it" I know it will break at some point. But im just trying to push a little more power out of it. It runs amazing obviously it has light axle noise from it just being used and a little transmission clunk when shifting but I am planning to get new syncros anyway soon. Please let me know. Would it be worth it to get a supercharger in the future or a cam right now with headers and a tune. It is completely stock right now. Thank you.

[Aqua Blue RS/SS]

I wouldn’t let that mileage scare me too much. These things are tanks and are known to run seemingly forever. There a lot of guys around here cammed at over 100K.

[Vicster]

Hello,
Just remember everything snowballs. So, upgrading push rods, valve springs, rocker arm bushings, timing chain and gears, oil pump and harmonic balancer to name a few items. Going through and reading some build journals should help you.

[1JEWLDSSRS]

Originally Posted by Vicster

Hello,
Just remember everything snowballs. So, upgrading push rods, valve springs, rocker arm bushings, timing chain and gears, oil pump and harmonic balancer to name a few items. Going through and reading some build journals should help you.

^^^ This for sure if you do cam it. I did my cam swap at 98k miles, and now have 126k miles on the car, 27k on the swap. Refreshed the valve springs at 23k on the swap, and just did the CHE Trunion upgrade to replace my ailing Smith Brothers that had 27k on them.

[lbls1]

You should be fine, as long as you change to high quality lifters as well. The good thing about our prehistoric camshaft and valve train design is that it is separate from other engine components. Of course you should still be concerned with wear from other engine parts, but that will come regardless of whether you change the cam.

As far as breaking down, I've always lived by this rule; A car will run as long as you are willing to spend on it. It means that as long as you take good care of the car and maintain it timely it should run indefinitely.

[SS_Dave]

Yep. Supporting mods and you should be good. Just throw a cam at it and nothing else, it'll break sooner than later.

[Danial]

I've hesitated on chiming in here because I'm not much of a techie guy. I pay others to do the neat stuff to my rides. Having said that, I have always been warned not to do cam and tune upgrades on these cars when you near 100K miles. I was a former member of the Southern Nevada Camaro Club and they have a local LS guru they all go to for mods. When I called that guy, he declined to do the cam upgrade I was asking for because of the mileage on my car. And he's not the first to turn down my work.

Am I getting bad info here?

[Moto-Mojo]

Originally Posted by Danial

I've hesitated on chiming in here because I'm not much of a techie guy. I pay others to do the neat stuff to my rides. Having said that, I have always been warned not to do cam and tune upgrades on these cars when you near 100K miles. I was a former member of the Southern Nevada Camaro Club and they have a local LS guru they all go to for mods. When I called that guy, he declined to do the cam upgrade I was asking for because of the mileage on my car. And he's not the first to turn down my work.

Am I getting bad info here?

I kind of doubt you are. Most likely from his perspective, you’re (anyone is) going to push it harder after a cam job and high mileage is just borrowed time. Of course, it would depend on how the 100K miles came too. Hard or moderate. But he probably figures he’d get the blame for what people would call an early failure on a “beast that runs forever” and probably just avoids the hassle. My two cents…

[Aqua Blue RS/SS]

Food for thought if any of you haven’t read it. Again I would not hesitate if all the supporting things are done like springs, trunnions, lifters, etc.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/hr...ng-theory/amp/

Not only did they cam it but they threw huge boost at it,(granted there was head work done, but still) revving to the moon and essentially couldn’t blow it up. It’s not terribly likely the cam is going to hurt anything as long as you do the whole package. I do all my own mods. I build engines for a living. I wouldn’t hesitate.

I’d bet GPI and the others have cammed a ton of them over 100K now that they are getting older.

[Danial]

These are encouraging words as I would like to use my current SS as a "playground" for mods while retaining my newest addition to the garage in stock form. Very cool.

[Danial]

Originally Posted by Aqua Blue RS/SS

Food for thought if any of you haven’t read it. Again I would not hesitate if all the supporting things are done like springs, trunnions, lifters, etc.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/hr...ng-theory/amp/

Not only did they cam it but they threw huge boost at it,(granted there was head work done, but still) revving to the moon and essentially couldn’t blow it up. It’s not terribly likely the cam is going to hurt anything as long as you do the whole package. I do all my own mods. I build engines for a living. I wouldn’t hesitate.

I’d bet GPI and the others have cammed a ton of them over 100K now that they are getting older.

Great article!

[Aqua Blue RS/SS]

It’s worth noting that the LS based engines have an engineered service life of 300,000+ miles. Obviously the performance variants aren’t all going to see that mileage by any means. But there are guys on here with 250,000+ miles that are still on the original LS3/L99 engines, maybe not heavily modded but I believe these engines deserve a lot of credit In just how reliable and durable they are over all. Shit happens sometimes and there’s not much any of us can do about that but over all these engines are damn tough. At 100,000 miles most of them are just getting broken in all honesty.

[Danial]

Originally Posted by Aqua Blue RS/SS

It’s worth noting that the LS based engines have an engineered service life of 300,000+ miles. Obviously the performance variants aren’t all going to see that mileage by any means. But there are guys on here with 250,000+ miles that are still on the original LS3/L99 engines, maybe not heavily modded but I believe these engines deserve a lot of credit In just how reliable and durable they are over all. Shit happens sometimes and there’s not much any of us can do about that but over all these engines are damn tough. At 100,000 miles most of them are just getting broken in all honesty.

Great info! Glad to hear it. Thanks, T.

[1JEWLDSSRS]

Originally Posted by Aqua Blue RS/SS

It’s worth noting that the LS based engines have an engineered service life of 300,000+ miles. Obviously the performance variants aren’t all going to see that mileage by any means. But there are guys on here with 250,000+ miles that are still on the original LS3/L99 engines, maybe not heavily modded but I believe these engines deserve a lot of credit In just how reliable and durable they are over all. Shit happens sometimes and there’s not much any of us can do about that but over all these engines are damn tough. At 100,000 miles most of them are just getting broken in all honesty.

lol, ^^^ this here! This is what my builder/tuner told me. When we opened up my engine, they couldn't believe how "clean and new" looking it was under the heads and manifold/valley tray, said you could eat off of it!! lol. If you do the cam swap and ALL the needed supporting mods for it, you will be golden. As stated these L99/LS3 engines are pretty durable and well built.