Its no big deal. You want the tune regardless to spruce up your air/fuel which will be off after the header install. There are several routes you can take on the rear 02s during the tuning and there will be no CELs concerns. The tune will also address other areas like shift firmness on the autos and so on. Headers are painless when properly installed (02 wires properly routed so as not to melt, tubes carefully adjusted so they dont rub anywhere, etc.) and give no trouble. Properly is the key word. A little extra time during installation and getting a tune done by a qualified tuner make all the difference between headaches that will have to be addressed later and a hassle free experience.

 

If you want the choppy idle, you're going to need to swap the cam. A stock cam won't lope like that no matter what exhaust you put on it.

 

How much would a cam cost? Roughly, I know there's alot out there. Also, I am putting on bullets. So the only thing I'll be changing is the cam and bullets, then tuned. Can I drive the car without the tune to get it tuned or will it damage something? Because I know of a legendary tuner in Lake charles, LA and I'm in Port Arthur about an hour away.
thanks
John

 

the cam itself its not expensive, $400 - $500. But you (usually) have to upgrade the valve springs and retainers + labour. Maybe someone else can fill in total cost for a cam upgrade with labour.

 

Thanks.
Stock 05 and I'm about to put b&b bullets on. I want to put a cam in also. About how much would this cam install cost? I'm 90% interested in sound so Hp is not my priority, but someone posted a link to a vette on utube and it sounded utterly awesome, loping and all. Then one of you said that you get that from installing a cam. As I don't want to start one thing that leads to another then another because I upgraded this now I need to upgrade that. A friend of mine has spent $10 that started out with a turbo, but he didn't do something then things started giving out because they couldn't handle the stress. Anyway suggestions greatly appreciated as I''m trying to build a case to present to my wife who constantly reminds me that I can't leave well enough alone

 

Figure around 2k for a cam and labor at a good shop. I had a large cam in one of my S10's talk about choppy! The truck would drone so bad at around 2200 rpms it would make your head swim.

 

No headers will actually quiet down the the exhaust note dramatically,and decrease power by 30hp. Stay with stock...

 

you have to be a little careful here....If you're not interested in peak HP numbers, I'd reasonably assume that you're not willing to change the drivability of the car that much.

A BIG, very choppy cam is going to make the car drive differently. If it's manual (I didn't notice if you mentioned our transmission anywhere) it's going to chug and buck a little at very low engine speed, you'll have to give it a bit more throttle on take-off to get moving without bogging (because the idle is fairly unstable), the peak power won't come in until the upper part of the rev-range and don't even THINK about driving it hard before it's fully up to temperature or you'll be punishing cold (ie: brittle) valvesprings.

Additionally, tuning is VERY important with a cam swap, especially so with a relatively aggressive cam. Think about it logically. If you were a stock vette ECM and the engine was idling like that black Z06 in the video, wouldn't you think something is horribly wrong?

A big cammed car on the stock tune is going to drive HORRIBLY. In fact, it will probably stall once in awhile while decelerating to a stop, it will burn gas like CRAZY and it will smell pretty horrendous. you NEED a tune. The problem will be even worse if your car is an automatic.

In short, don't do a cam until you're ready to do it right. have an experienced shop install and tune it in one shot. You can get a nice choppy idle out of a relatively small and daily-drivable cam by selecting one with the right specs (a narrow Lobe Separation Angle of 111-113 degrees and a valve duration that's biased toward the exhaust) and pairing it with a loud exhaust that lets the lopey idle be heard clearly (the bullets and a set of headers will do it for you....it'll be LOUD )

I've done what you want to do with my LS2 GTO. It had a small, mild-mannered cam that drove nicely with an SLP loudmouth and longtube headers. It only made about 410 RWHP, but it sounded like a PRO-STOCK CAR!

As far as price, you're looking at about $700-900 on the cam, valvesprings, pushrods, retainers and such (trust me, you need all this stuff, the stock valvesprings for example cannot handle the additional valve lift of an aftermarket cam). Installation and tuning will run about another $1000-1200 or so.