I know a lot of people have mentioned that the LT4 springs that come with the HotCam kit aren't very good.....but how bad are they and what symptoms? I am planning on installing a hotcam kit and was wondering if I really should upgrade them or not. If so, to what and how much $$$

 

They are good springs for a small cam (up to .525 lift). If your cam has more lift, then you'll need better springs

 

It's not that they are no good. They are OK as springs go, but they are
limited in maximum lift potential. If installed at 1.78" they only provide
.035" to coil bind with the Hot Cam kit. I prefer to see a .050" minimum
margin to coil bind. I ran them with the stock cam and 1.6 rockers and
they worked just fine.

 

That is what I was worried about, the .035" tolerance vs. something more. I really don't know all that much about valvetrains yet and was wondering if I should upgrade springs? What are some good but not too expensive alternatives that wont require any machining of the heads (just drop right in)?

Also, saying that I do get coil bind, what happens??? bent pushrods? what else? I want to get a good idea of what to expect.

 

GM specified those springs to go with that cam and those rockers. Bazillions of people are running that kit with no problems

 

Yeah, I figured that but just reading all the posts about them not having enough clearance to coil bind kind of had me freaked out. Thanks for the input!

 

Bent pushrods and broken springs are the two main consequences of coil bind. I think there was a broken valve spring thread a week or so ago that was the direct result of coil bind.

Re'

 

There are lots of spring options out there. The Isky 235-D may be worth
considering if your budget is limited. It's been a while but I think you will
need some L98 spring seats. The springs are about $90 and the seats
should be about $1.49 each. The rest of the stock hardware should work.