Effin A -- Nightmare first cam swap...
Sounds like a nightmare...just as the title insinuated, lol.
It took me 5 nights, and then took another 5 nights, haha. When I did it the first go round I used the stock rocker bolts. I had an appointment with PatG the next morning 120 miles away in Victoria. The exhaust rocker bolt was stripped at 1AM and I said **** IT, its either going to hold, or give me a finicky excuse to buy new heads.
Drove to Victoria, dyno/street tuned it. 5 miles outside of Victoria. TAP TAP TAP TAP. ****! Towed it home(free AAA) and found the bolt sheared. Took another 5 days and swapped to 799 heads and NEW rocker bolts(2 of which the threads were FUCKED).
All was well in the end. Congrats and enjoy! Whats the point of all this if there isn't a heartache or two along the way.
It took me 5 nights, and then took another 5 nights, haha. When I did it the first go round I used the stock rocker bolts. I had an appointment with PatG the next morning 120 miles away in Victoria. The exhaust rocker bolt was stripped at 1AM and I said **** IT, its either going to hold, or give me a finicky excuse to buy new heads.
Drove to Victoria, dyno/street tuned it. 5 miles outside of Victoria. TAP TAP TAP TAP. ****! Towed it home(free AAA) and found the bolt sheared. Took another 5 days and swapped to 799 heads and NEW rocker bolts(2 of which the threads were FUCKED).
All was well in the end. Congrats and enjoy! Whats the point of all this if there isn't a heartache or two along the way.
Glad you got it all figured out. Sometimes its good to learn the hard way, that way, you won't ever forget and can warn others. My first swap I was told to spin the hell outta the cam and sling all those lifters up and hope they dont bleed down! You think that cam would go in and out easy, but if you are just a hair off its a brick wall. lol!
That is similar to a time when i did a cam to a 03 Z06...
some how a lifter wiggled past the rods and fell into the oil pan... but i managed to snake it out. Then after all of that and putting on the alternator for the finishing component i drop the bolt for it and i couldnt find it... so i jacked it up and BAM!! oil was spilling out everywhere under the car... the alternator bolt was sitting on the transverse leaf spring, and when i jacked it up it bowed and forced the bolt into the oil pan.
so i had to drop the subframe and get the pan off and weld it up...
it was a major pain doing all of that, but of course i learned from that(not to do it on a Z06 again)
some how a lifter wiggled past the rods and fell into the oil pan... but i managed to snake it out. Then after all of that and putting on the alternator for the finishing component i drop the bolt for it and i couldnt find it... so i jacked it up and BAM!! oil was spilling out everywhere under the car... the alternator bolt was sitting on the transverse leaf spring, and when i jacked it up it bowed and forced the bolt into the oil pan.
so i had to drop the subframe and get the pan off and weld it up...
it was a major pain doing all of that, but of course i learned from that(not to do it on a Z06 again)
glad you got thru it and hopefully i dont run into some of these nightmares as i plan on doing my first swap soon. would you guys suggest just using extendable pern magnets thru the spark plug holes.? and i dont get the reason for rubber bands?can some one explain
I've never heard of the rubber band method either. It has always been rods or pen magnets.
I look forward to swapping the cam in my new engine with it outside of the car. I'll just wait for the money instead of going through installing it and then having to tear everything down again to swap the cam.
I look forward to swapping the cam in my new engine with it outside of the car. I'll just wait for the money instead of going through installing it and then having to tear everything down again to swap the cam.
Congrats on the install man, I'm doing a cam install on my truck right now. I've been working on it for almost a week doing 30 min. to an hour at the time and stopping when I get pissed off. Its worked out much better this way; if I'd had to do it in a weekend the truck would probably be burnt to the ground by now because I'd gotten mad and set it on fire.
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I have some wood dowels that are about 24" long for my upcoming swap. Is that long enough to reach all the lifters and still have a bit of a handle to grab onto? I know too long isn't good either since you won't be able to get the rods in.
Ah, don't tell me that. I bought that thing thinking it was going to make the spring swaps easy. I guess I'll have to mod it, too, if it goes to crap on me.
About the worst problem I had was with the Thunder Racing Valve in car spring tool. What ever clown thought it was a good idea to make it out of aluminium needs a swift kick in the nuts! After about 3 springs the soft material was ate up enough it would not center on the retainer and would want to slide off.
So being a machinist by trade I took it on myself one weekend to make an copy of the tool out of steel and improved it so it will work on other stuff then just LS heads.
So being a machinist by trade I took it on myself one weekend to make an copy of the tool out of steel and improved it so it will work on other stuff then just LS heads.
I have some wood dowels that are about 24" long for my upcoming swap. Is that long enough to reach all the lifters and still have a bit of a handle to grab onto? I know too long isn't good either since you won't be able to get the rods in.
Ah, don't tell me that. I bought that thing thinking it was going to make the spring swaps easy. I guess I'll have to mod it, too, if it goes to crap on me.
Ah, don't tell me that. I bought that thing thinking it was going to make the spring swaps easy. I guess I'll have to mod it, too, if it goes to crap on me.
I could see how this could be a problem, but it worked flawlessly for us.
The crane dual spring tool is the best IMO. Just be careful not to loose a nut in the head like i did. lol
I got steel rods for my lifters. Measure twice for length and cut once for the rods.
I got steel rods for my lifters. Measure twice for length and cut once for the rods.
Couldnt you just have loosened the rocker arms so the pushrods can move up and down freely,turn the motor over by hand a few times and the lifters will stay up? I just did this the other day with my 6.0. This does work doesnt it? Am i missing something?
To the OP .... I hope you replaced the lifters while you were in there.
i had a bad first experience on a heads/cam swap. Me and my buddy disassembled everything and installed heads/cam/headers/intake and oilpump, lifters and all that good stuff. Well installation went very smoothly, car fired right up and sounded great and had great oil pressure. Took it to get tuned and dynoed and while dynoing the car it developed a lifter tick. So long story short I didn't feel like taking everything apart myself so had the shop tear it all back down and replace the lifters and discovered one had failed. They replaced the lifter and car drives and sounds great now. So a project I tried to do myself to save money ended up costing me alot of extra cash. Well at least now I know its professional installed LOL@!!
Good job on the swap. Nothing goes smoothly so it's a good learning process to deal with all that **** yourself. In the end it's nice to know that you did the work yourself.
I didn't for a couple of reasons:
1. I was only pulling the passenger head, so I had no intention of pulling the driver's head to get to the other four lifters. I inspected them, and the four lifters seemed to be in good shape (the car is running fine now).
2. I already had my pushrods (7.425), and since the replacement ls7 lifters are a different length than my stock ls1 lifters, I figured I would need to run different length pushrods on the passenger side than the 7.425 I was going to be running on the driver's side. For obvious reasons, this wouldn't be an ideal situation.
Was my thinking off track?
1. I was only pulling the passenger head, so I had no intention of pulling the driver's head to get to the other four lifters. I inspected them, and the four lifters seemed to be in good shape (the car is running fine now).
2. I already had my pushrods (7.425), and since the replacement ls7 lifters are a different length than my stock ls1 lifters, I figured I would need to run different length pushrods on the passenger side than the 7.425 I was going to be running on the driver's side. For obvious reasons, this wouldn't be an ideal situation.
Was my thinking off track?
Didn't read or realize you were only doing one head. 
congrats on the cam swap, and sorry you had a bad time with it! kinda sucks but seems to be worth it.
hey your buddy clayton doesnt happen to have a srt4 and used to have a dodge omni and a shelby csx? if so have him email me! zachtower@yahoo.com
hey your buddy clayton doesnt happen to have a srt4 and used to have a dodge omni and a shelby csx? if so have him email me! zachtower@yahoo.com