valve spring lift..

[shorty1993]

i searched and am having trouble finding exactly what i am looking for, we know how well the search works. what is the max spring lift on the stock E7's? i am wanting to cam my car, so i have been looking at b cams so i can get pretty steady increase across the band. the plans are (since money doesnt grow on trees) to go ahead and cam it (with new chain and water pump) retain stock valve train, then when i get the cash, added the twisted wedge heads and the 1.7's. this will likely be a nitrous car in the future, so i figure with the lift the 1.7's add it should open the valves nicely once the heads are on. i am welcoming any comments on this or corrections to my misunderstandings.


p.s. who has the pic showing the power steering bypass routing? cant find mine nowhere.

 

[5.0Droptop]

up to .500 lift is safe on stock springs.

here is the short belt diagram

 

[shorty1993]

thanks man, that takes care of the info i needed.

 

[Michael Yount]

Slow down there -- this statement "so i have been looking at b cams so i can get pretty steady increase across the band." isn't true. You're gonna notice a HUGE drop off of bottom end with that cam and the stock heads, and very little gain on the top end. And tired stock springs are known to float with the stock cam -- they'll be more prone to do so with the B. It's entirlely possible you'll get into valve float before you can access what little bit of top end gain you might get with the cam. Just because the stock springs are capable of more peak lift without reaching bind doesn't mean they won't float, or that it's a good idea to take them that far. You'd be MUCH better off saving your cam swap for when you do the heads and intake. I suspect you'll be very unhappy with the results of a basically stock engine and a B cam. One of my favorite quotes came from a fellow that frequented the sites for a while "Best performance mod - taking the B cam out of my stock engine and putting the stock HO cam back in."

 

[shorty1993]

thanks Micheal, i am not real wise on cams, i was only going by some dyno numbers i have seen where the B doesnt seem to take a huge jump at higher revs. i have got 120k miles on the car, you think the valves are that bad off. i plan to heads fairly soon. the thing is i wanted to replaced the chain as a precaution and wanted to go ahead and get a new water pump on it. the cam decision was considered simply for sake of not disassembling the engine again in the future. i welcome your thoughts.

 

[Michael Yount]

Unless you're having some specific symptom - no reason to replace the timing chain as a 'precaution'. If the pump needs replacing - it's easy to do on a stand-alone basis. Save up for your heads -- and then do heads/cam at the same time. You'll much better off.

Don't forget the intake - it's the most restrictive stock piece on the intake side of things. If you want to do something that will add power/torque right now, get an intake on that thing, or have tmoss port your stock lower. For about the same price as a used B cam, you can have tmoss port your lower, and get MUCH more bang for the buck -- and the install is MUCH easier than a cam swap. And with intake/heads/cam/exhaust - you can start to look at maf and throttle body.

And yes - at 120K the stock valve springs are in no mood to handle the B cam.

 

[shorty1993]

thanks micheal, i still have alot to learn on valve train. you dont happen to know where a good reference site for understanding cam specs is do you. dont really understand it as well as i would like to.

thanks

 

[Michael Yount]

Here's the best reference I know of to learn about cams. Open every tab and read up....

http://www.wighat.com/fcr3/