I used my dremel to trim a little material off of that tab to make it easier to seperate the two.

 

Exactly what i did. I tried again putting some muscle into it but since I am doing the job by myself I didn't have the extra hands i needed to hold the radiator in place. Instead I trimmed half the tab off so the other half remained for re-install. Condenser cam right off and still plenty of tab left for support. Thanks!

I also did this so the next cam swap would be easier.

 

^^^ Great recommendation VictorF.

 

Almost there. I have the steering pump off. The only thing left is the rack and balancer. Doesn't look too bad. Is it really hard to pull the cam out of the engine? I know you have to finesse it but is it really tough? Is it a frustrating process? I must admit i am feeling a little depressed. I am concerned about going through all this work and hating the cam because the car runs like crap. It's only a 226/230 114+2 so really hoping it is well behaved.

 

When I did my cam swap, my condenser was warped due to the intake resting on top of it. No amount of finesse was getting me out of that bind-I had to swap out my skirt for a pair of dickies and get to work.


Good job mfoti. I think that cam will behave nicely. I ran a 230/238 on a 112+2 and it was daily driveable once you learned the nuances of how it behaved.

I don't care what anyone says, no cam, besides a stock cam, drives like a stock cam. There are always trade-offs but the one you've chosen should behave if you have a decent tuner.

Removing the cam takes a little finesse, that's for sure. You'll need to keep rotating it while you pull it out gently but deliberately. You don't want to mar up the cam bearings with the sharp edges of the lobes. Mine came out in about 15 seconds so it's not like it takes a long time. Support the cam as you remove it from the motor so you can keep it straight. It really helps to have someone hold the condenser out of the way or you might to considering bungie cords to tie it up and away.

If you got a 3 bolt cam/cam gear, the water pump bolts are the same thread pitch and work great as an extension/handle when reinstalling the new cam.

You're almost there. The rack is probably the worst part of the job IMO as it's big, clunky, and not easy to maneuver since there is a lot of stuff in the way. Keep it up.

 

Justin did you use the thin wood dowels to hold up the lifters or did you just spin them and hope they didn't fall?

Mofti you don't want a lifter to fall into your oil pan. That makes for a bad day. They normally don't if you spin the cam a bunch of times to push them all up into the holders but you should be aware that it can happen and plan accordingly. Some guys use thin wood dowels and some use magnetic keepers from up top.

If you don't use any sort of keeper, I would not dick around getting the old cam out and the new one in. Be careful and deliberate, but work expedisously.

 

Your cam will drive just fine once tuned. I have a 226/230 114+3 in mine. No issues at all, except for traction

 

My car is easy to drive with a cam, never dies, no surging and my cam is a lot bigger than either of yours. It's all in the tuner taking time to dial in drivability, but the good news is our modern computers are a lot better than they used to be. The Ls1 computer was slow....hard to tune, 05's E40 is a lot better, and the 06+ E38 is much much better. So much it doesn't even have VE tables as we used to know them, and you don't need them to get a nice driving car.

Frankly the COW Booster made it tricker to drive as the throttle is so touchy, but MAN o MAN is it fun. You breathe on the pedal and it flies. Feels like a cheetah tensed up all the time, and just a flick of the foot the car jumps.

 

Got the steering rack out. Wheeeew! It looked a lot worse than what it was. When i loosened the ABS block mount it gave me plenty of room to move it out. One last question before I pull the pulley and cam. Can i use an air gun to remove the pulley bolt? I know I can't use one to install the new bolt but any reason i can't just 'zip' it off with a power tool?

 

If you gun is strong enough use it. I use an electric torque wrench and it breaks the bolt loose

 

thanks again to everyone for helping me along. I have 5/16 rods to hold the lifters. They are 36 inches. How short should i cut them down to? Is 22 inches correct?

 

If you've got one strong enough, sure. It's no joke though. Probably need a 3/4" drive one with plenty of air going to it..

 

The ones I used are 26". Could they be shorter?...don't remember.

 

Can i get someone to answer another question for me? My model is an 07 with a cam tensioner. The car has only 7K miles so i wasn't planning on taking off the oil pump and would prefer not to. Is there a way to remove the tension so i can get the gear off the cam?

 

Replace that crappy tensioner with a dampner instead. The spring style tensioners are garbage and will break. Ask me how I know..See pictures below.

The dog biscuit LS1 style is a much better alternative.

Even if you took the tension off the timing chain, you still couldn't remove it w/o removing the oil pump. It's just part of the process. Hopefully you bought a spare O ring to install.


















Dampner installed. No issues afterwards

 

Big day is near!!! I have everything ready to pull the cam tomorrow. I plan to have some help pulling the condenser up. Is that the easy way? Do you just pull it up far enough to slide the cam underneath it?

P.S.. got the autozone pulley installer and the 250 ft-lb torque wrench. I hope it makes this job more straightforward.

 

You got it. I used bungee cords to hold it up out of the way since I did it with noone home.