Cam timing? Could it be off?
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From: Florida
Originally Posted by Suavy
Casey, I would love to talk to you about this process can you call me at (586) 752-8167 I'll be there until 2 am daily. Or if you would e-mail me your No. I'll call you?
God Bless,
Suavy
God Bless,
Suavy
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 1,049
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Thread Starter
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Senior Member
Joined: Sep 2003
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From: Florida
Originally Posted by lightninquick
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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 2,840
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From: Bridgeport, MI
I know that allot of people say that their so and so built engine is running great. I guess when I set out to do my own thing I wanted to show the Lightning community that it doesn't take a ton of money or to be on any tuners A list to make a fast truck.
That comment is not a slam to the tuners at all!
What I did do is take parts from one shop and parts from other shops and make my set up. I do feel however that we may have figured out where my engine problems have come from for the last 3 years.
When I first lifted my heads adding 26 lb of boost to my truck after being tuned by JDM I trashed 3 pistons and melted 3 spark plug holes. I had the machine shop skim the joint face of the heads to make sure they were flat and that when we try to run high boost again they would have a good connection. What I didn't think about was that by changing the heights of the heads I was changing my cam timing. This would explain why a program that was made for me by a known tuner did not make me any more RW Hp. Another factor that did not help was right out of the gate I added the Magnum blower bigger valves ported the heads & intake. Went to bigger injectors and fuel system with this custom tune that at that time netted me a worse ¼ mile time. I and others blamed it on the tune but now we know that changing the centerline of the came to joint face would change my cam timing.
So the next season comes around and I have my heads freshen up only to find out that while on a local dyno to get base numbers to send to my tuner we blow another head cuz of a cracked vacuum line to my brake booster. Sal helped me find that one by the way.
This season working through Magnum Powers we adjust seat pressure to my valves so we can try the big boost again using my new stage 3 cams. Well my first time out with this set up the engine during the brake in process eats it self up due to a bad oil pump. This also eats up my freshen up heads and cams! So we pull every thing apart build another engine and we have to figure out what to do about the cams that now have damage to the bearing journals not to mention the bearing journals on the heads. We send the heads out to be line bored over sized .02" and send the cams out to have the bearing journals ground evenly and then have them spray chromed .02" over so the fit in the heads. All seems good right? Wrong because we also had the machine shop make sure that the joint face on the heads are straight by having them skim a thou or 2 off of the joint face. That’s right we just changed the centerline of the cam to the joint face again, which changed my cam timing again. Now lets figure in the minimal amount of degreeing that Crower said might need to be done and the 3 times we have repaired these heads.
This all explains why I have invested 20K into my drive train and am not making gobs of RW Hp. Needless to say I have lost another race season but have learned allot about cam timing and heads to say the least.
I haven’t posted much about my set up so as to not shed a bad light on the tuners and people who have so graciously supported me. I will however post my dyno sheets and track times as soon as we get the engine put back in and post what we found as to how far my cam timing was off. I hope this info helps you all on your future builds.
God Bless,
Suavy
That comment is not a slam to the tuners at all!
What I did do is take parts from one shop and parts from other shops and make my set up. I do feel however that we may have figured out where my engine problems have come from for the last 3 years.
When I first lifted my heads adding 26 lb of boost to my truck after being tuned by JDM I trashed 3 pistons and melted 3 spark plug holes. I had the machine shop skim the joint face of the heads to make sure they were flat and that when we try to run high boost again they would have a good connection. What I didn't think about was that by changing the heights of the heads I was changing my cam timing. This would explain why a program that was made for me by a known tuner did not make me any more RW Hp. Another factor that did not help was right out of the gate I added the Magnum blower bigger valves ported the heads & intake. Went to bigger injectors and fuel system with this custom tune that at that time netted me a worse ¼ mile time. I and others blamed it on the tune but now we know that changing the centerline of the came to joint face would change my cam timing.
So the next season comes around and I have my heads freshen up only to find out that while on a local dyno to get base numbers to send to my tuner we blow another head cuz of a cracked vacuum line to my brake booster. Sal helped me find that one by the way.
This season working through Magnum Powers we adjust seat pressure to my valves so we can try the big boost again using my new stage 3 cams. Well my first time out with this set up the engine during the brake in process eats it self up due to a bad oil pump. This also eats up my freshen up heads and cams! So we pull every thing apart build another engine and we have to figure out what to do about the cams that now have damage to the bearing journals not to mention the bearing journals on the heads. We send the heads out to be line bored over sized .02" and send the cams out to have the bearing journals ground evenly and then have them spray chromed .02" over so the fit in the heads. All seems good right? Wrong because we also had the machine shop make sure that the joint face on the heads are straight by having them skim a thou or 2 off of the joint face. That’s right we just changed the centerline of the cam to the joint face again, which changed my cam timing again. Now lets figure in the minimal amount of degreeing that Crower said might need to be done and the 3 times we have repaired these heads.
This all explains why I have invested 20K into my drive train and am not making gobs of RW Hp. Needless to say I have lost another race season but have learned allot about cam timing and heads to say the least.
I haven’t posted much about my set up so as to not shed a bad light on the tuners and people who have so graciously supported me. I will however post my dyno sheets and track times as soon as we get the engine put back in and post what we found as to how far my cam timing was off. I hope this info helps you all on your future builds.
God Bless,
Suavy
Senior Member
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 757
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From: L.I.NEWYORK
Originally Posted by Suavy
I know that allot of people say that their so and so built engine is running great. I guess when I set out to do my own thing I wanted to show the Lightning community that it doesn't take a ton of money or to be on any tuners A list to make a fast truck.
That comment is not a slam to the tuners at all!
What I did do is take parts from one shop and parts from other shops and make my set up. I do feel however that we may have figured out where my engine problems have come from for the last 3 years.
When I first lifted my heads adding 26 lb of boost to my truck after being tuned by JDM I trashed 3 pistons and melted 3 spark plug holes. I had the machine shop skim the joint face of the heads to make sure they were flat and that when we try to run high boost again they would have a good connection. What I didn't think about was that by changing the heights of the heads I was changing my cam timing. This would explain why a program that was made for me by a known tuner did not make me any more RW Hp. Another factor that did not help was right out of the gate I added the Magnum blower bigger valves ported the heads & intake. Went to bigger injectors and fuel system with this custom tune that at that time netted me a worse ¼ mile time. I and others blamed it on the tune but now we know that changing the centerline of the came to joint face would change my cam timing.
So the next season comes around and I have my heads freshen up only to find out that while on a local dyno to get base numbers to send to my tuner we blow another head cuz of a cracked vacuum line to my brake booster. Sal helped me find that one by the way.
This season working through Magnum Powers we adjust seat pressure to my valves so we can try the big boost again using my new stage 3 cams. Well my first time out with this set up the engine during the brake in process eats it self up due to a bad oil pump. This also eats up my freshen up heads and cams! So we pull every thing apart build another engine and we have to figure out what to do about the cams that now have damage to the bearing journals not to mention the bearing journals on the heads. We send the heads out to be line bored over sized .02" and send the cams out to have the bearing journals ground evenly and then have them spray chromed .02" over so the fit in the heads. All seems good right? Wrong because we also had the machine shop make sure that the joint face on the heads are straight by having them skim a thou or 2 off of the joint face. That’s right we just changed the centerline of the cam to the joint face again, which changed my cam timing again. Now lets figure in the minimal amount of degreeing that Crower said might need to be done and the 3 times we have repaired these heads.
This all explains why I have invested 20K into my drive train and am not making gobs of RW Hp. Needless to say I have lost another race season but have learned allot about cam timing and heads to say the least.
I haven’t posted much about my set up so as to not shed a bad light on the tuners and people who have so graciously supported me. I will however post my dyno sheets and track times as soon as we get the engine put back in and post what we found as to how far my cam timing was off. I hope this info helps you all on your future builds.
God Bless,
Suavy
That comment is not a slam to the tuners at all!
What I did do is take parts from one shop and parts from other shops and make my set up. I do feel however that we may have figured out where my engine problems have come from for the last 3 years.
When I first lifted my heads adding 26 lb of boost to my truck after being tuned by JDM I trashed 3 pistons and melted 3 spark plug holes. I had the machine shop skim the joint face of the heads to make sure they were flat and that when we try to run high boost again they would have a good connection. What I didn't think about was that by changing the heights of the heads I was changing my cam timing. This would explain why a program that was made for me by a known tuner did not make me any more RW Hp. Another factor that did not help was right out of the gate I added the Magnum blower bigger valves ported the heads & intake. Went to bigger injectors and fuel system with this custom tune that at that time netted me a worse ¼ mile time. I and others blamed it on the tune but now we know that changing the centerline of the came to joint face would change my cam timing.
So the next season comes around and I have my heads freshen up only to find out that while on a local dyno to get base numbers to send to my tuner we blow another head cuz of a cracked vacuum line to my brake booster. Sal helped me find that one by the way.
This season working through Magnum Powers we adjust seat pressure to my valves so we can try the big boost again using my new stage 3 cams. Well my first time out with this set up the engine during the brake in process eats it self up due to a bad oil pump. This also eats up my freshen up heads and cams! So we pull every thing apart build another engine and we have to figure out what to do about the cams that now have damage to the bearing journals not to mention the bearing journals on the heads. We send the heads out to be line bored over sized .02" and send the cams out to have the bearing journals ground evenly and then have them spray chromed .02" over so the fit in the heads. All seems good right? Wrong because we also had the machine shop make sure that the joint face on the heads are straight by having them skim a thou or 2 off of the joint face. That’s right we just changed the centerline of the cam to the joint face again, which changed my cam timing again. Now lets figure in the minimal amount of degreeing that Crower said might need to be done and the 3 times we have repaired these heads.
This all explains why I have invested 20K into my drive train and am not making gobs of RW Hp. Needless to say I have lost another race season but have learned allot about cam timing and heads to say the least.
I haven’t posted much about my set up so as to not shed a bad light on the tuners and people who have so graciously supported me. I will however post my dyno sheets and track times as soon as we get the engine put back in and post what we found as to how far my cam timing was off. I hope this info helps you all on your future builds.
God Bless,
Suavy
I havent been on the dyno yet to see any power differance or the track to see any in E.Ts. Im saying a prayer im not in the same boat.Are you 100 percent sure this is your problem cause i just cant see how such a small amount can make such a big change in timing and loss of power.And i asked my engine guy if it would make a differance milling the head with timming and he said no 
I had remembered hearing something about this in an earlier post. Looks like im gonna have to do some research.LaterJason
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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 2,840
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From: Bridgeport, MI
Originally Posted by chimshady1
Wow Suavy sorry to hear that. You my man have been put through the ringers and back. You truly must have patience of a saint. But now your getting me worried cause when my head blew i had some repairs done to it and the head was resurfaced. I havent been on the dyno yet to see any power differance or the track to see any in E.Ts. Im saying a prayer im not in the same boat.Are you 100 percent sure this is your problem cause i just cant see how such a small amount can make such a big change in timing and loss of power.And i asked my engine guy if it would make a differance milling the head with timming and he said no I had remembered hearing something about this in an earlier post. Looks like im gonna have to do some research.Later
Jason
I havent been on the dyno yet to see any power differance or the track to see any in E.Ts. Im saying a prayer im not in the same boat.Are you 100 percent sure this is your problem cause i just cant see how such a small amount can make such a big change in timing and loss of power.And i asked my engine guy if it would make a differance milling the head with timming and he said no I had remembered hearing something about this in an earlier post. Looks like im gonna have to do some research.LaterJason
I asked my engine builder the same thing and he said no.
However, I am blessed to work in the engine plant and I walked over to the head line where the ford 2V PI heads are machined. I talked to our process engineer who said it would have a direct effect thats why we have a tolerance on our blue print. He also said he wants the data I get back from the person who is gonna do my degreeing so he cam make a spread sheet for me that will tell me how much each .001" of the joint face will effect the timing. Think about it I have had my heads skimed 3 times and adden new cams. Crower said that there is some variance between the cams, chains, and gears now add the 3 times I had the heads decked. I am also gonn measure the heads with calipers on all 4 corners when I pull the motor Sunday
God Bless,
Suavy