96 TA

I don't have money for heads and cam, but I can do one or the other. My passenger side head has a stripped intake bolt hole and header bolt hole so im leaning more on just buying some heads (AI). If I bought the heads, could i install them on my car and have it run right with out an upgraded cam? What would be some problems of doing it this way? Thanks

raulz28

It should run fine but the power gains won't be too impressive, if I were you I would rather spend the money on a cam and then maybe you can upgrade the heads later.

96z28_lt1

the heads would make it so you can flow more air and exhaust but without a cam allowing the engine to let more air in and exhaust out the gains would be minimal like said, anyone could correct me if im wrong, also if intake and throttle body aren't ported it really wouldn't do anything for you but give you a nice top end platform ready for when you do eventually put a cam in, where a little hot cam kit would net you some gains and probably please you

96 TA

Do you think the heads with a stock cam would cause a lean issue? The only reason im thinking of upgrading the heads is because I want to remove one to fix the stripped bolt holes and figured while I had one off then why not just remove the other and put some AI's on there. Otherwise id perfer just to put a cam in and have this be a non issue.

Either way I go, heads or cam im looking at 2k, and I think id rather just get the heads out of the way while i have them off and save up for a cam later. But if doing so means I could put my motor at risk because it being excessively lean than of course ill just fix the head and do the cam.

raulz28

It shouldn't put the motor at risk the air going in is metered so the computer should add more fuel to compensate for more air. It's when the air is not metered when troubles start, I'm no expert but this is the way I see it if I'm wrong then hopefully someone can come in and correct.

Kevin Blown 95 TA

It's not going to make it run lean - it will run fine. You can do the cam later. The only drawback is doing the intake twice. If you can afford the heads now and not the cam, then just do the heads (at least make sure the springs are going to work for the cam you want or you will be redoing that later), then the cam will be a cheaper upgrade that you can do when you get funds. Just know it needs to be a matched system to get the gains you want out of it. Just one or the other isn't that wonderful.

96 TA

Thats what I was thinking, I guess it just took hearing it from someone else to affirm it. Ill do that then and make sure the springs are set up for the cam ill upgrade to. That brings up another question though, would having springs for a 226/236 cam with a 110 lsa work poorly with my stock cam? Not sure if one could have too much spring for their cam.