Operation: Cam Swap....any tips?
 

So tonight we will begin tearing everything down and hopefully getting the springs swapped out as well.

We plan on doing as much as we can today and then finishing up on Friday.

Any tips on anything? Even the little things, just so we know what we are getting into.

Is there a special tool to remove the opti, thought i heard this somewhere?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Joey

Others will lead you to sites or how to pages. I would just like to say, take your time and keep it clean. What cam are you installing and do you have the right springs for the cam? Do you have someone that's done this before that's helping? Because that's a big plus right there. And don't forget, there is more to just swapping out the valve springs. Do you have the right tools for the whole job at hand, including a way to measure the installed height of the springs? What about throwing on some new valve seals while your at it. Good luck and make sure you have some antiseptic and bandaides handy. ;)

hat tool for the opti is an e-torx socket, very hard to find very hard to get, easy solution is to take one of the throttle body torx bolts out, wrap it in take or something so you dont damage the threads and use that with a pair of vice grips

there are alot of threads anbd write ups on it, i'm sure someone will chime in with a link

if you have someone that has done the swap already that makes it easier

bring cyl 1 to tdc before you take stuff apart, i know you dont have to but i am used to working on interference OHC motors and its just a safety precaution

Not necessary.

www.shbox.com

Incase you haven't seen it already. Check out the "how to" section and it has a full detailed walkthrough.

Dont be surprised if your front cam bearing is shot, this is quite common when swapping cams. I was doing a LE2 install but now I am doing a full 355 rebuild after finding my front cam bearing in very bad shape.

If you install a new cam on worn bearing you will be hating life afterwards if you have to go back into the engine again.


See this post for the opti cap tool:
http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...highlight=tool

take your time and be clean, latex gloves, lube it up good and check the bearings for wear.