Time for a cam swap, opinions welcome

[go_go_gadget88]

Another update. Got the timing cover pulled tonight. Double checked the cam and it sure looks dot 2 dot to me. Soooo, I'm about out of ideas.


In good news, I got the oil cooler delete done. Hopefully this lets me be leak free going forward. The factory fitting going into the block was hardly even threaded into the block. No wonder it was leaking..

[Bo White]

Mine was hand tight if that.

[frankwjr]

time to degree....good luck.

[go_go_gadget88]

Originally Posted by frankwjr

time to degree....good luck.

I will have to order one I guess and learn how to do this.

In the meantime, my dad has a dial indicator so borrowed it and pulled a valve cover. I set it up on the valve retainer when valve was all the way up, and after trying a few valves (intake and exhaust, they are all reading as the valve only dropping like .41x- 43x" so far. Advertised lift on cam is .640/.615" ..am I missing something here?

I also checked one by setting it up on the pushrod side of the rocker, and I was only getting like .25x" when I did that side. Which seems to add up with stock rocker ratio.

What the eff, guys??

[zz430camaro]

Originally Posted by go_go_gadget88

I will have to order one I guess and learn how to do this.

In the meantime, my dad has a dial indicator so borrowed it and pulled a valve cover. I set it up on the valve retainer when valve was all the way up, and after trying a few valves (intake and exhaust, they are all reading as the valve only dropping like .41x- 43x" so far. Advertised lift on cam is .640/.615" ..am I missing something here?

I also checked one by setting it up on the pushrod side of the rocker, and I was only getting like .25x" when I did that side. Which seems to add up with stock rocker ratio.

What the eff, guys??

With the valve springs in, it will push the piston in the lifter all the way down and you will never read the real valve lift. You would have to put in a light "checking spring" to check valve lift. A stock lifter has a total travel of 0.200 inches so if you have 0.070 lifter preload it still has 0.130 to go before it bottoms out. If you multiply this by 1.7 its .221 inches. if you subtract that from .640 you get .419", exactly what you are reading.

[frankwjr]

Originally Posted by zz430camaro

With the valve springs in, it will push the piston in the lifter all the way down and you will never read the real valve lift. You would have to put in a light "checking spring" to check valve lift. A stock lifter has a total travel of 0.200 inches so if you have 0.070 lifter preload it still has 0.130 to go before it bottoms out. If you multiply this by 1.7 its .221 inches. if you subtract that from .640 you get .419", exactly what you are reading.

smart!

[go_go_gadget88]

Originally Posted by zz430camaro

With the valve springs in, it will push the piston in the lifter all the way down and you will never read the real valve lift. You would have to put in a light "checking spring" to check valve lift. A stock lifter has a total travel of 0.200 inches so if you have 0.070 lifter preload it still has 0.130 to go before it bottoms out. If you multiply this by 1.7 its .221 inches. if you subtract that from .640 you get .419", exactly what you are reading.

This is why I love these forums, that makes perfect sense. Thank you!!

So my lift is fine then at least. All the more likely it isn't a cam grind error. List of possibilities is dwindling.

[zz430camaro]

Originally Posted by go_go_gadget88

This is why I love these forums, that makes perfect sense. Thank you!!

So my lift is fine then at least. All the more likely it isn't a cam grind error. List of possibilities is dwindling.

Gadget, after seeing that guys dyno is screwed up, I think you might be chasing a problem that does not exist. It would not be a bad idea to degree the cam while you can do it but you need all the right shit and its much more difficult while in the car.

[zz430camaro]

Does that thing start screaming and pulling light a mother ****er when it hits 3500? Or does it feel like something is wrong? I dont have any faith in those dyno readings.

[go_go_gadget88]

No at 3500-4k it started pulling great. Not quite what I was expecting on the butt dyno, but it ran "well" for sure.

[go_go_gadget88]

Another brief update for those who care. Never did find anything looking out of place, so went ahead and reassembled so I could at least drive the thing!

Came across an amazing deal on a catback here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Magnaflow-1...53.m1438.l2649

So I picked that up and got it put on last weekend. Took it out for a spin, and WOW, this thing was ripping it! Granted, it was also a lot colder, so that probably didn't help traction at all..but it seemed to have no issues busting tires loose now!

Also, realizing I bought a used intake and hadn't cleaned filter, I decided to. It looked fine, but I am trying to find every little bit that I can. Washed it out, and it appeared to have been over-oiled. So, that wasn't helping anything. Went ahead and pulled the MAF out (I just used the one that came with the intake) and it has a black residue all over it. Guessing from filter being over-oiled. So, I am going to get that cleaned up too. Let my tuner know all of this, and he wants to get it back on the dyno one of these days. Need a couple small tweaks done to the tune as well, but overall, this thing was running GREAT! Definitely needs some gears though...it doesn't like being below 3k much at all.

[Hixson]

Still following, I hope everything continues to work out for you. Are you still hunting for issues or at this point are you happy with where its at?

[Sturgill_SS]

Good to know that everything checked out fine! Keep us up to date and enjoy!

[go_go_gadget88]

Originally Posted by Hixson

Still following, I hope everything continues to work out for you. Are you still hunting for issues or at this point are you happy with where its at?

Other than needing a couple things tweaked in the tune (takes a little while for RPM to come down after a rev, and need limiter raised a bit), it runs really really well. I'm pretty happy with it seat of the pants wise, just not the numbers..but those don't mean a lot on their own. It sounds great now too. This exhaust really deepened the tone without making it much (if any) louder at WOT.

It just isn't as powerful as I wanted still...but not sure if that was going to happen without some boost And gears will probably help a lot there without adding actual power at the crank. Maybe cleaning MAF and checking tune will help a bit, but between that and the exhaust, I am not expecting miracles. A small gain would be nice though.

At the very least, I will have some definitive proof weather a catback makes more than a couple HP difference on a cam/heads car. Very little solid info on this topic. And this magnaflow competition one shouldn't be very restrictive since it's basically a resonated x-pipe and then straight pipe after that.



Best of all...I looked under it last night since it has been sitting for days, and NO LEAKS NOW! Oil temps didn't seem to be much, if any, higher after some spirited driving with the cooler delete. So that's nice