i would suggest having them build the short block if you have never put a motor together.........clearancing things for your first time isnt always the smartest

sit down and figure out all it would take you to do the cam swap............then invest it into the bottom end, later down the road you will happy you did.

Can you say Forced Induction D1SC

 

Would upgrading the oil pump to the the high pressure spring/pump and replacing the front cam bearing help the longevity of a high-mileage cam swap? (I've contemplated doing a cam only for now as well)

 

i definitely wouldnt even consider building up my motor if i didnt have the funds to fix it if it were to bite the dust. consider what one individual said. he cammed it. 3 days later it spun a bearing. can you afford to fix it if it does? if not, i would consider holding off. or like others have mentioned, build the basics first. start with the bottom end build (whether built professionally or personally). why gamble with what you cant afford to lose? JMHO.

 

i am in the same situation as this kid... i am in my last year of high school and my z is my summer DD i am thinkin about a camming it.... but i still need to get full bolt on's... my plan is to get full bolt on's with weight reductions and radials etc and see wat i can run then see how much $$ i have and go from there....i wanna make my car as fast as i can without any major mods....then from there i am gonna start doing major mod's... aka saving for a complete 383 stroker rebuild for spray professionally done.... and make max HP i can and turn her into a drag queen

 

what he said. blows up, better reason to do a full build

if cant afford to rebuild, dont do something that can make it blow - the wise man

cory

 

If it's not your main means of transpo... I say GO4IT

 

you should be scared....i spun a bearing after about 1200miles

 

There are plenty of options for headers for a single cat car even in the strictest emissions counties, go that route along w/ a mailorder tune (assuming you don't have one) along w/ some suspension/chassis mods or something and you'll get a pretty nice increase for now without really risking much more than leaving it like it is. MACs or even the edelbrock TES headers would be a big improvement (the single cat TES setup isn't too bad IMO). People overrate the importance of longtubes on here, it is certainly worth it to go with mids when those aren't an option.

I don't think you should really be worrying about doing heads/cam yet when all you currently have is two lousy mods. Do the rest of the major bolt-ons and go from there. Just headers and a tune will really wake that car up, it certainly did mine.

 

Yeah do this and you'll definetly need to rebuild!! Rings at 145,000 are brittle and if you shoot 100 shot at them they will last about 3 times on the bottle!
Trust me I have a piston on my wall at home that I can show you that this is what happens!

 

HV oil pump will not perfrom right without a larger oil pan.

Knowing what I know now and if I had to do it all over again I would tell someone to pull the engine and at a minimum replace all bearings when doing a cam install especially if you are doing the heads too.

It took me 6 hours to tear down the engine to a block with it still in the car and less than 2 to pull the block from the car from the bottom.

When the engine is out everything is cake plus you beef up the weak points if you want to. Dont be afraid to cam it, just do it the right way the first time or roll the dice and have to do it again possibly costing even more money. From what I have read the odds are against you throwing a cam in on a used engine regardless of mileage and not running into spun bearings or other problems.

Some guys get lucky, I would not have been one of them cause my cam bearings and one rod bearing were toast, they would not have lasted a 100 miles with my LE2 setup so I am now building a solid 355.

 

+1...i thought the same way as you outlaw a couple years ago (im a soph in college now), i suggest you wait until you get a good steady bankroll coming in until you dive into a cam install...but on our high mileage cars (mine just rolled a buck 40), i just did a whole new opti, coil, spark setup and 200 miles later i get lifter tick, over 1k in parts to find and solve problems...thats on a bone stock 13 second car, imagine a cammed 12 second car...

 

I have the same thought but mileage is even higher, so I'll wait and do the whole engine, before then I'll go with PCM for Less tune. If you have an auto i'd go for a high stall, gears and headers

 

I put the cam in at around 80k and then the heads were right at 95k... still runs like a champ.

 

I just did madz28.com tune and hooker long tubes and gained about 40 rwhp. Since my engine is high mileage, I plan on doing 1.7 RR next, followed by some ported heads to try to get about 340 rwhp without cam if possible. I don't want to have to spin higher than about 6100 so that it lasts but can still run a high 12, hopefully.

 

I know plenty of people who have sprayed higher mileage LT1's and are fine.

Rings are brittle LOL...