This has been about the worst string of luck on a cam install. My puller broke on the damper. My valve spring compressor broke, which sprung the spring and sent the retainer flying. Took a while to find it. The replacement broke. Broke a bolt off in the cylinder 8 exhaust rocker buss trying to compress that spring - try drilling that ****** on an F-body. had to buy a 90 degree drill attachment to get to it. I dropped a wrench and it slide between the K-member and the oil pan, and I still haven't found my 10mm speed wrench that fell on the driver side somewhere or the retainer that fell from #5 intake spring - which got cross-threaded while trying to start the bolt to compress the new spring. I've still got #5, 7, 2, 4, 3 to get changed. At a rate of 2 hours per spring so far, I should be done sometime on Thursday, and it should not be this hard. I could have pulled the heads and done this on the bench faster than this.

There's not much else to do but to plow through it, but I thought some of you might get a laugh out of this - I doubt I'm the first guy to have a project go so horribly wrong.

The irony is the actual cam swap and timing set part of this went really well.

 

I pulled the motor out. It's so hard to get to anything under the cowl. I just couldn't do it (without going insane).

It was easier to build it on a stand and do the heads on my dining room table. I completely disassembled my TEA heads twice to check things and make sure everything was installed correctly. One spring was actually off a bit. So being **** isn't all that bad.

 

Sound like Murphy's law.

 

Lessened I learned a long time ago, always take your time starting fasteners. About the most aggravating thing is having something cross thread, mostly because 99 times out of 100 it could have been avoided.

 

Yeah, it was like quick sand - the more angry I got, the more I struggled, and the more I struggled, the worse it got.

After a day to cool off, I decided I really don't want to pull the heads, because there are no leaks, and I'd have to buy all new fasteners, so I ordered the overly expensive valve spring compressor from summit. SHould arrive today, and then I'll be in good shape.

I still need to drill out that cross threaded rocker bolt hole and run a helicoil in there. I hope the cam is worth it. it's a 227/233 and .615/.624 on 114+2. 2 degrees of overlap, 45.5 degree IVC, 52.5 degree EVO. Basically a modified version of the comp XER273. I was looking for good average power, and I rarely take the motor over 6,000. I shimmed the springs to bind at .660 and .670, which I'm hoping should help valve train control and spring longevity.

At least if I don't like the cam, the next one will be ready with the springs, so the swap should be less of a hassle. It will surely be better than the stocker.

 

I feel ya, man... A simple valve spring swap turned into killed lifters (**** COMP R's) after startup, and I pulled the heads to replace all the lifters... Wound up scratching my knuckle on the cowl, sprayed it out with brake clean and kept going, went to sleep planning to finish up and put the intake on the next morning. Wake up, hand's infected, wound up getting hospitalized for three days and having hand surgery because evidently my cowl somehow had antibiotic-resistant staph on it.

**** happens

 

Sound like fun. Im currently collecting parts for the cam swap on my T/A. Im not looking forward to it.

 

Dining room table?? You must be single!

 

Wow and I was thinking of doing my cam install lol.

 

When I did my buddies camaro, we compressed the valve springs and used 5 zip ties to keep them compressed, put them on, add the keepers and snip the zip ties. after we figured that out, it was easy street.

 

Still better than a good day at work!

 

the right tools for the right job... done spring on an fbody a few times. takes about an hour and a half start to finish. patience is key. you can F*** yourself real quick as you have learned

 

What valvespring compressor tool are you using? I've done a set in an Fbody in a couple hours.

 

The staph was on your skin and you scratched yourself and it got under your skin

 

Good Lord. Takes me about an hour. I even did it twice on the last build bc my dumb *** was in a hurry and forgot to separate the brown and black valve seals. Damn near every spring had to come off.

I've gotta admit, this is about the craziest install I've ever heard of.

Are you called "sex hands" by chance?

 

LOL! Only my wife calls me that.

I was just trying to make do with the wrong tools. I finally ordered one of those compressors that does two at a time when I posted my last one. I was just thinking that $90 for a VS compressor was stupid. After I bought it and used it, it took about an hour to do all of them in total, so it suddenly became the best $90 I ever spent.

Car is running now, and very strong. Chops a bit at idle, but not too bad. Tough to drive at 15mph in the school safety zones. Took a bit to learn the idle. Pretty good balance between low end torque and high end power. Compared to the stock cam, it pulls much better in fourth at 20mph and pretty quickly gets to 50 - about as fast as it used to make the same run in 3rd gear. On the stock cam, it lost alot of steam around 110-120 and started creeping up. Now, it hauls through 120. Haven't gone any faster than 130, because the windows start sucking out, and I don't want to break one. Even fifth gear feels strong now above 2500 rpm.

At 5500-6000 rpm, I feel like it runs out of gas, which is probably the literal truth, since I'm still on the stock injectors. I also need to get the tune done and on the dyno to see what she has now. There's alot of guys on here with similar mods (intake, headers, mid-range cam), so I'm sure many of you can accurately guess at the power.

Bottom line for anyone else doing this - it's not a bad job if you have the right tools. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can make do with whatever you have laying around in your garage. Get the right tools and do it smart. Had I got the right tool in the first place, the entire job wheels up to wheels down would have been six hours.

 

Glad you got it all buttoned up and done.

Definitely don't go WOT too much if it's starving for fuel / running lean. Be looking for some 36# injectors. I'd doubt you'd need 42's at this point.

Is the fuel pump upgraded yet?

 

^^^ this although if you have the stock pump still it may not be keeping up. seen that a few times

 

DR and Red, thanks! I was actually looking up a set of 36# injectors just now, so your recommendation cemented it for me. Hadn't thought the fuel pump would be an issue. If the injectors don't resolve it, then I'll do that next.

 

Is do it anyway. When I was on the rollers back with the SS, Geoff picked up on it immediately bc at WOT I was losing about 8psi at the rail (and I completely ran out of injector as well)

Swapped a Raceteonix / Hotwire kit on it and she held FIRM to redline.