What are some of the known issues with cam swaps?
If you go from mild to wild what problems or stumbling have you run across in your cam swaps?
How important is a tune and what is it's effects on the vehicle operation and drivability?

 

"Mild to wild" doesn't tell us much. What are you talking about? Are you talking about say using the same cam and going from Elderbrock heads to AFR killers or what? Or preferably you just build it right the first time instead of making crappy choices in the beginning only to regret them later.

Tuning goes without saying. Even you should know that, right?

 

a tune is very important. the closer the tune the better it will run. ...if your talkin 'wild' i doubt it would even run without a tune

you have to have new valve springs to... the stock springs wont handle any aftermarket cam

1.6 ratio roller rockers are also a common upgrade when putting a cam in

 

I would consider a stock cam mild and to define wild 112lsa or lower would be a good base. I am looking at it from a street driven perspective.
I know for me, my tune is off and I will send it back to get it re-tuned or maybe just skip the whole mail order tune and go to a dyno shop that can do lt1s with obdII ports and a obdI pcm. Which brings me to a question, anyone know a shop/person that can tune a car in the Philadelphia area?
The only real problem I got with my setup is the damn idle is too high and I tried shoeboxs method but it's not working. I deleted air/egr from the pcm and double checked for vacuum leaks and found none.

 

Of course a 'wild' cam will run without a tune.

It'll run like crap, but you can most certainly drive the car.

What you'll have with a wild cam and no tune, includes:

1. Lousy gas mileage;
2. Sluggish throttle response;
3. Inconsistant idle;
4. 'Cam Surge'.

KW

 

READ THIS --->> https://www.camaroz28.com/forums/lt1...herter-873080/ of www.PCMforLess.com fame.

You'll want to be in attendance to get your car tuned at this event.....OR.....at the very least (if the car ain't ready), you'll want to talk to Bryan Herter about him doing a tune when the car is ready.

IDK if Bryan has his own dyno or not (I don't think he does), but he can do an 'on-the-road' tune for you that'll be just as good.....especially for nailing down a solid street tune !

KW


NOTE: If the car ain't ready by May 11 and you do show up.....take your PCM and all engine specs (and cash or debit/credit card) with you. Bryan may be able to do an 'in-person' mail order type tune between dyno runs.....



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My only complaint with my cam swap is a bucking issue on tip in just off idle, with very light constant throttle. If I'm in a parking lot or gas station letting the car pull itself at idle it is fine, but as soon as I lightly tip into it and hold light throttle<10%, it will start bucking and not stop unless I give it more throttle or let off.

I need a wideband and dyno time to work this issue out. I expect to start making some headway on the issue after I get my truck paid off(August). I've been tweaking the tune for a couple of years here and there.....been watching a lot of Banish to learn what I need to do. I have not been able to get my injector settings "right" so I may go back to the stock units and stock air box to dial in the VE table on the low end. The LT1 PCM does not make for as nice a tuning experience as the LS1 tuning software. Logging the wideband through the PCM can be done through the AC pressure sensor input....which is what I plan to do when the time comes.

The car seems weaker on the low end compared to the stock cam, but the top end is a monster compared to the stocker. The CC503 does shift the power band higher.

Anything above 10mph has no problem at all(no bucking, surging, etc).

The car does run hotter in 6th gear. At cruise, 1500-2000 in 6th, the engine temps are around 200-205 compared to the 190* with the stock cam. That tells me that the mixture is on the lean side.

That could mean the MAF calibration is not right....so I've got homework to do for sure.

The car does run good for stock heads. If I had it to do over, I'd change nothing. The CC503 is a great cam for stock heads. With headers, stock LS1's are no problem at all to beat.

My times in my sig are with the CC503(1/8th mile tracks). I can't get off the line worth a dang, but the MPH is really telling of how much power the car has picked up. I think the car is easy high 7's with a good set of tires.

 

You don't need dyno time or a wide band to tune an off idle surge. That is largely a transient response. Your timing is probably late. Our engines retard the tiiming for cranking, so it is alright to advance the low rpm timing if you need to. Your MAF should be the last thing you adjust unless it has been messed up by porting or something or it is dirty. Your injectors may be set wrong, but that is a matter of following your BLMs and seeing if they are off across the whole range or just at idle. So if they are off across the range, then work on the constant, and if it is mostly just at idle, then work on your turn on times. It is a good idea to swap the stock injectors back in for troubleshooting as you mentioned. Not sure why you would run hot at cruising altitude with a 503 vs stock cam, but timing could play a part in that as well. And all this is assuming the engine is sealed up tight and everything is working correctly. You get leaks here and there and sensors not working or wires burnt and tuning won't help that. The VE tables have little or no effect on fueling in MAF mode so forget about messing with them. All this information has been out here for 15 years now, so it is not that hard, although somewhat inconvenient to log-n-tune the old LT1. It was hard back when the cars were new and no one knew much about them and the only available software was not that good. For a 503 swap, your car should take about a half a day to tune for driveability, not 2 years. Get it running right now and later when you have a few extra pesos in the bank, then get a dyno tune for the banzai runs