Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary?
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From: Louisville, Ky
Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? I'm getting ready to do a TR 224 with 918 springs, FLP headers, LS6 intake, ASP pulley, Ported TB with stock heads. The engine has 32,500 miles on it. Is a new timing chain really necessary or will I be okay without it? I want to say I'll be just fine because I have friends who have stock chain and the TR230 but there cars are blown up right now. And what about the ported Oil pump like the TR Ported LS6 pump, do I have to have this? Thanks- Mike.
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From: Orlando
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? I'd do the chain at a minimum. When you are dealing with higher RPM's and the small tolerances that the valves have on a cam with, what, .581 lift, I'd replace it just to keep everything in check. A replacement stock chain will be okay for the occasional 6K romp, but I replaced mine at 50K with the JWIS chain. I wouldn't trust it, myself. Think about it...one snapped chain and a bunch of scrambled valvetrain components and one pissed off driver! A replacement now could save you a lot of misery later.
Oil pump...you'll get varying opinions on this but this is one mod I didn't do. IMO, save the money and buy some hardened 7.4" pushrods. If you treat the o-ring on the pickup tube gently when removing the pump, (if you decide to do a chain...otherwise you don't need to screw with the tube) the stock pump should suffice. My vote? Chain, yes. Pump, no. You'll love the new cam!!
Oil pump...you'll get varying opinions on this but this is one mod I didn't do. IMO, save the money and buy some hardened 7.4" pushrods. If you treat the o-ring on the pickup tube gently when removing the pump, (if you decide to do a chain...otherwise you don't need to screw with the tube) the stock pump should suffice. My vote? Chain, yes. Pump, no. You'll love the new cam!!
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? Im getting ready to do heads and cam. im replacing both, but my engine had 50K on it. the way I see it at least do the chain. it alot less expensive then a blown motor.
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From: Schiller Park, ILL Member: #317
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? I vote oppsite. I say pump yes, chain maybe. I replaced my pump when the cam went in because I was seeing some of the early signs of a possibile bad pump. I felt that was most important to fix. My chain had only 5000 miles on it at the time and I only planned to rev to 64XXrpm max, which is only a couple hundered rpm above the stock rev limiter. It's been fine so far.
One of our club members was revving a stock chain with a B1 cam like mine to 7100rpm under boost. The motor did fail eventually, but the stock chain never broke!
I don't feel that the stock chain is all that weak, the pump I would look at replacing though. Maybe people have had stock pumps fail with stock motors and very low miles. I don't hear of any failures of stock chains on stock motors with low miles, so right there you have to figure that the pump is a more known weak point. One friend has had TWO stock pumps fail....
One of our club members was revving a stock chain with a B1 cam like mine to 7100rpm under boost. The motor did fail eventually, but the stock chain never broke!
I don't feel that the stock chain is all that weak, the pump I would look at replacing though. Maybe people have had stock pumps fail with stock motors and very low miles. I don't hear of any failures of stock chains on stock motors with low miles, so right there you have to figure that the pump is a more known weak point. One friend has had TWO stock pumps fail.... Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? One of our club members was revving a stock chain with a B1 cam like mine to 7100rpm under boost. The motor did fail eventually, but the stock chain never broke!
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From: olathe, ks
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? If it is an economic impact for you to swap the parts in question, then leave them stock.
I asked the GM dealer about a new pump, and GM had revised the part #s 2x. That was enough of an incentive to spend the 80$ on a pump. As for the timing chain and gears. Both the chain and gears looked really good at 20k miles. I swapped them anyway. The replacement chain from GM high perf is stronger than the stock one.
It is your car, and if you are ok with putting the used parts back, do it. These questions get asked about 50x a year, so there is a lot to be found with a search.
I asked the GM dealer about a new pump, and GM had revised the part #s 2x. That was enough of an incentive to spend the 80$ on a pump. As for the timing chain and gears. Both the chain and gears looked really good at 20k miles. I swapped them anyway. The replacement chain from GM high perf is stronger than the stock one.
It is your car, and if you are ok with putting the used parts back, do it. These questions get asked about 50x a year, so there is a lot to be found with a search.
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From: Viginia Beach, VA
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? I spent $200 for a dual roller and a ported oil pump. I figure that compared to $3000+ repair bill because the timing chain snapped, or the pressure dropped low at high RPM and all the nice bearings seased, I can afford the $200 much more.
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From: Chicago Heights, IL
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary?
I spent $200 for a dual roller and a ported oil pump. I figure that compared to $3000+ repair bill because the timing chain snapped, or the pressure dropped low at high RPM and all the nice bearings seased, I can afford the $200 much more.
Just my .02.
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From: Schiller Park, ILL Member: #317
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? Guess I just hadn't seen enough stock chains snap to worry about replacing it. If I drag raced the car regularly or used a power adder I would probably swap it out, but in many applications I just don't think it's necessary unless you've got a good deal of miles on it. 
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary?
Guess I just hadn't seen enough stock chains snap to worry about replacing it. If I drag raced the car regularly or used a power adder I would probably swap it out, but in many applications I just don't think it's necessary unless you've got a good deal of miles on it.
Re: Timing chain and/or Ported Oil pump necessary? i have the 224/224 cam in my 98 with 44k on here... still going strong, but with the heads going on im replacing both anyway since I have a new pump and chain