Pontiac GTO 2004-2006 - Busted lifter, trashed cam...Need opinions!

I had a lifter/s take a shit on me, trashed the cam....

So now I'm face with a dilemma, do I get a new cam (same specs) or go a little bigger?

The car made awesome power for being a bolton,cam car, and with a little custom grind cam. Not that dyno numbers are everything, but its one of the highest bolton/cam ls2's I've seen, and whether it came from the cam or I just have a strong motor I don't know.

Anyway, here's the dyno sheet....450/414, on 91... at Cunningham Motorsports (Murietta, CA)
Also made 458/415 on a mustang at Craven Performance (St Peters, MO)
-Svede
-FAST 102
-Cam
-UDP
-LT's, 3" Catless, Super 40's

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were you happy with the drivability on the current cam?
If so, go a little bigger.

Oh and lose the Super 40s lol.

That sucks Greg. You didn't say what lifter you had but I think all of the threads I've seen that had lifter/cam destruction used the plastic lifter trays. When I popped on my 243 heads I dug deep and bought some link-bar Lunatis and threw the trays away. Looking at your graph I'd stick with proven power. Didn't you have a FTI SSHT? You might get better internet "numbers' with something else but I see a nice torque band above 400 ft/lb and most of the usable band above 375 ft/lb. I'll bet that baby excelerated!

Oh ya. Lose the Flows. It may only be a few but those are ceratinly holding you back a bit at that level IMHO. Exhaust is the one thing I see on these cars that's just thrown on. people will spend a ton more to get 5-10 more HP out of a header.

Sorry bout tht Greg. I wish I made 450 when I was cam only lol. I would maybe stay around the same, lots of tq. And I would say link bars are a must now.

That sucks Greg. You didn't say what lifter you had but I think all of the threads I've seen that had lifter/cam destruction used the plastic lifter trays. When I popped on my 243 heads I dug deep and bought some link-bar Lunatis and threw the trays away. Looking at your graph I'd stick with proven power. Didn't you have a FTI SSHT? You might get better internet "numbers' with something else but I see a nice torque band above 400 ft/lb and most of the usable band above 375 ft/lb. I'll bet that baby excelerated!

Oh ya. Lose the Flows. It may only be a few but those are ceratinly holding you back a bit at that level IMHO. Exhaust is the one thing I see on these cars that's just thrown on. people will spend a ton more to get 5-10 more HP out of a header.

Yeah its a bummer, but 96,000 HARD miles, I guess she held out pretty long.

Stock lifters/trays. Heads have never been off the car.

If I port the heads, I might give the new cam a slight bump up, but stay with the same profile.

As far as the exhaust goes, I WAS in the process of redoing it, then re-tuning for 93...car only has 22-23* in it now.

Sorry bout tht Greg. I wish I made 450 when I was cam only lol. I would maybe stay around the same, lots of tq. And I would say link bars are a must now.

Yeah it sucks. Most likely will do linkbars, but we'll see.

Link bars, Ported Stock heads and same or slightly more aggressive cam grind should put some fire back in the beast. Sorry to hear happened but if you have 96k hard miles you really can't complain, best of luck.

Are you gonna mill those heads when you port them?

I'd stick with the same cam, but ditch the lifter trays as said above.

How much of those metal scraps and shavings went into your pan, oil pump and bearings?

^going to pull the pan and caps to check this weekend.
No time with school and work during the week.

Send heads to A.I. for a clean up, porting and competition valve job, have Cam Motion custom grind you a slightly larger cam (they use lobes that don't beat up your valve train so you can safely get away with some additional lift), then have Cam Motion send the cam to A.I. so they can match the head work to the specs of your cam. I followed this route after my lifters took a dump per the advice of Damien at Spartan Performance and I could not be happier with the result. 492/448 from a stock bottom end LS2. Easy to drive every day with mid range torque that will plant your eyeballs in the back of your head.....