Simple cam swap on Gen V 454

[Old Navy]

As far as oil goes, I have had good luck with Mobil 1 V-Twin 20W-50, This was discussed at length on OSO (and beat to death) expensive but cheaper than a motor. I thought we were talking about a cam change here. I am guilty of going off topic

 

[bigsbetter]

Yea, probably shouldn't go down that 'oil road'. I've NEVER had an engine fail because of oil, and I use some cheap stuff in some of my engines!

 

[SneakyPete]

I say just fiddle with the boost and leave the motor as is until it lets go, that way when it does you can spend the money you saved on not buying a cam/lifters/guidplates/machining for screw in studs/rockers on a new motor....or fiddle with props...

 

[PayCheck]

Took a valve cover off. I do have the wimpy 5/16 push rods. Here are some other numbers for someone to decode for me...date code-L193, casting number is-10114156, on the guide plates says-MARK V PE, and in big letters on the head it says GM 6. Tell me what you know about these heads.

Well....those are "peanut" heads to make things worse. You might want to look into something with better breathing - you can pick up rectangles for a reasonable price nowadays, but they are a little big for a 454. You realy want some large ovals for what you're trying to do, in my humble opinion.

Here's a shot of one of my Gen V's with the 10114156 still on it. I bought two sets of the 088's as I'm stroking them to 496.

 

[PayCheck]

And here's the crappy little vavles...notice the wrong head gaskets for a Gen V.

 

[ezstriper]

From what I have been told most of the Diesel oils have now lost their good break-in additives (zinc and such) due to the new diesels running cat. converters. I did here that there is a diesel oil or two that still has these additives, I'm going to try to find out which as I want to run my new engine on them upon break-in before swicthing over to royal purple. Rob

 

[Big Red]

Rotella does not have what you need to break a cam in anymore they took the good stuff out. I was told this by Comp Cams 4 months ago.

Just buy the additive from Comp Cams that you put in your oil. It a hole lot easier then tring to find oil that has the right stuff in it.

You must check your spring preasure. Changing a cam without the correct spring preassure is backyard crap. You break your cam in with the correct springs that the cam kit calls for with the correct closed preassure and open preassure. If you do not run the correct P-rods or the right ratio rocker your going to get spring bind and then you will be pulling your valve out of the top of your piston.

Stock springs are useless on any cam swap most of the time they have lost over 10 pounds of preassure after 100 hours of use. And if you go shimming them your going to get spring bind.

Your valve train set up plays a big roll in the performance of your engine.
to do a proper cam swap your heads need to come off and be set up by a good performane shop if you want it to last.

98% of cam lobes that get worn off is due to improper spring tension. The stock springs you are running will not work for any cam the has any good lope when its idleing

If you do not belive anything I have posted go to a good performace shop and ask them.