How to swap an LS Cam - VVT Delete, Electrical, Push Rods - Everything you need to know

hey everyone my name is Dave and Welcome to our shop here at NTD racing this here is honcho our 1978 Jeep J10 desert race truck and we just got done doing a cam swap where we had issues with everything the valves wouldn't stay up in their guys we had delete variable valve timing and we also had push rods that were the wrong length and we're going to show you how you deal with all of those but this is what it sounds like at the end [Music] so in this video we're going to show you everything we do along the way all the tools we use torque specs let's go ahead and start by pulling the engine and get this cam swap going so I'm not anyone to tell people how to build stuff but you know as I built this truck I never thought about removing the transmission in this case I got to remove the engine and transmission out and I didn't make it wide enough in any Dimension to get a 6l90 transmission out without removing the engine so I always take those apart together and I'm in a new shop I don't have a lift anymore so it's kind of difficult right now to get the body off so I end up having to cut basically a tunnel for the the engine to come out I think I'll be able to put that back together no problem and then you know what if you got kids and you ever expect them to be the kids that wrench on cars and you got to get them out there in the garage and and my little boy loves helping me out in the garage especially when he gets to lift about 700 pounds of engine all by himself with all that being said let's go ahead and take a look at some of the things that we're going to put into the engine okay if you're interested in any of the things that I'm using in this video you can find a link in the description below these are the things I had to buy to do this Swap and we're trying to do it on a budget we're using these sloppy mechanics best Cam and this is also right here where since we're a variable valve timing engine on the ly6 we had to get a variable valve timing delete which is a new uh valve chain cover there the new sprocket we got the new uh harmonic balancer bolt and a couple other bolts here that we'll be using and I'll show you how those are put on as we go along through the video all right you saw how I pulled this engine out of the the car but uh here's the basics of it so I got most of it cleaned up I have the exhaust manifolds off I also have all of the coils off already now there's two basic parts I need to take apart I need to take apart the front of the engine to expose the cam so I need to take apart the top of the heads to expose the basically the springs and the Rockers and all that kind of stuff so I can get those push rods out of there to take all the pressure off the lifters and the camshaft so it gets that camshaft out of this let's go ahead ahead and start on the front of the engine all right first let's start with this serpentine belt and loosen up the the tensioner get the belt off this thing next we're going to get the water pump off with a 10 millimeter socket so now that the water pump is off and I clean up all the water that is poured out of there uh I'm gonna go ahead and take off the harmonic balancer I'm going to use this puller right here you don't have to use any special but this is one I got so that's the one we're going to use reach in there and grab the harmonic balancer I also I got to take this bolt off this is a 22 millimeter bolt um I'll use my impact wrench to get that off I'm going to leave the bolt in there a little bit so I'm going to take it out and I will use that to Anchor off this puller basically to help me pull that thing out let's go ahead and get to that so here's the thing they sell specific tools for removing harmonic balancers and I I would go buy one especially if you're planning on doing more than one I'm able to get it off with this tool but it is cumbersome you need like about six extra hands so it just took a little bit more work but we're able to get it off foreign you can already tell the difference between the timing chain covers this one has the variable valve timing this one is that delete doesn't have that but it still has the camshaft position sensor so we'll wire that in later so start getting this thing off first there's one wiring plug you got to go ahead and pop off the the bottom and then around the horn here there's 10 millimeters don't forget to get the two bottom ones foreign so now that we have the timing chain cover off you can see the difference between the two camshaft sprockets this is a three bolt and this is the one bolt and I'm going to go ahead and use a 15 16 to go ahead and take that bolt off and then once that's off I can take the chain off and that exposes now the camshaft and the chain can just go ahead and lay inside there once the camshaft sprocket is off now you have some t40 Torx screws to go ahead and take off to get that the a plate that's holding the cam shaft in and there is the camshaft so from this perspective we're ready now to take it out the front now we've got to deal with the top of the heads it'll take an eight millimeter socket for these valve cover bolts so we may have overheated this engine launcher twice so it's a little bit difficult to get all the seals to break parts loose foreign eight millimeter is what you need to take the rocker arms off all the push rods and come out now just be set inside the head so that takes all the pressure off the lifters now we do the exact same thing on the other side all right so let me show you what's going on here here's this still the same old cam inside there and inside this little hole right here you can see the lifter as I rotate the camshaft you see the lifter going up lifter going back down and what that should do is inside here right underneath the head there are some plastic valve guides and they should hold those things up so when you spin the cam it holds that lifter in the up position but in my case it's not those things are worn out so you know if you just take the cam out right now that lifter is going to drop and it's going to it's going to go down in the oil pan um what I'm going to do is I'm going to do the trick they have with these 5 16 wooden dowel rods I'm going to slide them through there it should hold the lifters from at least dropping down I'm not sure if it's going to be out of the way and it's not going to interfere with me pulling out the camshaft but we'll try that um if it goes bad I gotta go get some head bolts and all that kind of stuff and pull the heads off and that kind of stuff which is going to really suck but anyway let's go ahead and see if that works and uh and if it does then you can try this on your own swap in case you're having the same problems with your own valve guides all right in the off chance this is going to work I'm going to show you how I have everything set up these are the 5 16 wooden dowel rods I got it for one dollar from Home Depot you can see I marked those dial rods off so that that Mark is at the same length as the width of the cam shafts I know how far that dial Rod has gone into the engine block before I even pull it try to pull the other one out I'm going to get this camshaft ready with some Lucas assembly Lube so that when I pull one camshaft out I can try the other cams out right back in and I'm basically going to use this screwdriver right here I'm going to slide it into the camshaft to kind of hold it while I'm putting it in there and it also allow me to kind of rotate that camshaft and support it going in there besides that I'm going to get the old bolt that was holding the other can amp shaft in there I'm going to put in there to kind of help me leverage that thing and guide that out so let's get those dowel rods in there and pray it works here we go all right I see the lifters in there but I think I'm going to clear them all oh my gosh so this works to be so happy holy buckets oh this is so awesome this freaking worked yep oh my goodness all the lifters stayed in there and they are working yes all right getting this thing back together start with this cam retainer plate here and the bolts are going to get a little bit of red Loctite so what I'm going to put on them to keep them in there and 18 foot pounds of torque all right let's talk about lining up the crankshaft sprocket with the camshaft sprocket so first off this one was hard to find you can just see it down here I got lined up at the 12 o'clock position and right there on that sprocket you see there's that little dimple that dimple right there I'm aligning it with this circle right here let me know that that is at the 12 o'clock position and then what that's going to line up with on the camshaft is this little dimple right here and that's going to be at the six o'clock position let me show you how I'm gonna get this thing on all right so the first thing I'm going to try to do is just kind of get the chain out of the way right now I don't want that to kind of muddle everything up just yet I got the sprocket this little pin and this pin should be at about the three o'clock position to start this whole thing and I'm going to try to feed this thing on there and just set it up first over top of the cam so I thought I'd actually engage in these teeth sprocket of the chain so I'm going to get that on there and now I'm going to rotate the camshaft and try to get that Mark on the bottom of the camshaft sprocket right at the exact six o'clock position and that is pretty darn close for where I want that now that I got all that correct now I'm going to do is I'm going to lift the chain and I'm going to feed it over the top of this of the sprocket trying to maintain that Mark in the six o'clock position here I'm going to keep that Mark in a six o'clock position as best I can rotate here and then now I'm going to put it right back over the camshaft which should be pretty darn close to where I had left it all right the cam shaft sprocket bolts get a little bit of Loctite again uh it's a 10 millimeter and takes 26 foot pounds of torque on these all right so now it's time to talk about we're going to do with these two covers you see here's the one with the variable valve timing stuff on it here is the new one with the variable valve timing delete and this is a four position plug and this one over here is a three and I got a feeling that what we got here is the variable valve timing going down with a ground and then one kind of a sensor in there or a signal wire in there in the ground and then a ground also splitting off and go into this thing also so what I want to do is without having to go and buy new parts and do a whole bunch of different wiring and that kind of stuff is I'm going to basically assume that the cam position sensors are exactly the same from one to the other and I'm gonna see if I can't just take this one off modify this cover a little bit and put it on here and plug it into this cam position sensor and maybe modify this cover just a little bit and then just Frankenstein together so let's go ahead and take these apart and see what we got foreign foreign foreign foreign prong plug there which will plug right into my old harness um I did rivet it right here so this is the part off of the new one this is the part of the old one I kind of cut and made them all fit together and then there's the plug right there so I think that's all going to work and we'll put that on and we'll see if we're able to tune it and make it work all right it is time now to get the valve train back together and I'm going to go through some stuff that I learned while watching Richard holdner he does a lot of engine tuning if you haven't seen him I put a link for his videos in the description below and he I think he's just probably one of the most generous people with his time and information on the internet so we're going to do is we're going to just tighten down these a little bit anyway so first thing I want to do is I want to make sure that the lifter is on the hill or the lowest point on the camshaft the way I'm going to do that is again I got that 22 millimeter over the crank and I'm going to continue cranking it until I see that the lifter pushes um the rocker arm all the way up and then once it starts going back down as soon as it starts going back down now it's 180 degrees out of phase so if I turn the crank over one time the camshaft will turn over half a time and it'll be at the lowest point on the camshaft so I'm gonna turn that about four quarters and then now this rocker right here should be at the lowest point or it should be at the heel of that the camshaft now what I'm going to do is get my eight millimeter over the rocker arm bolt and I'm gonna twist that in and basically once it seats I'm going to go ahead and use two fingers and just put it two finger tight on onto the rocker to take out all the Lash and what the last means that there's no play basically between the camshaft the lifter the push rod rocker arm all the way down to the valve there's no play in there and all the Lash is out and then now what I'm going to do is take us my ratchet with another eight millimeter and I want to see how many turns now it takes to completely seat that rocker so I'm gonna go ahead and try to turn it and as you see it doesn't even take a quarter of a turn and the rocker arm is still loose on there there's still a bit of play in there and that's telling me that it's too loose what I am looking for is that this thing would go at least a half a turn to a turn and a half somewhere in between there to be the correct value so let's take the push rod out and see how long it is for this I had to get some extra long calipers these are in my Amazon store or in the description below but as I close in on these this push rod which is a stock push rod we see it is 7.39 inches and that's about the stock LS push rod length so if we went up to the next size that would be about a 7.45 inches so I have this other handy-dandy tool right here which is a push rod that basically you can extend and shorten to test it before you go and buy push rods so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put this thing into my caliper and I'm going to twist it until I see and I already got it pretty darn close until I see seven point four five inches on those now let's see how a push rod was 7.45 inches we do I'm going to put it back in there and I'm going to basically run the same thing taking out the Lash and see how many turns it takes to tighten this thing down all right so it is all the lashes taken out now let's count how many turns it takes half and somewhere about three quarters of a turn so now I know that those push rods are the correct length now I'm going to go order those on Amazon and we should have them here in a day or two and we'll finish putting this thing together and tightening down the valve train all right I do not spend too much money on my budget engines but this time I did I got these really sweet uh Comp Cam push rods these are the points are 7.45 inch ones so just slightly longer than the stock LS one so we'll take the LS Rod out put the new Comp Cam rod in and then we're just going to go through that whole lash to get the last process again like we did last time I'm going to take out all the play there all the play is out and then now we'll get our socket we're looking for one half to one and a half turns so there's a half there's one full turn and that's it so that is those push rods should be a good length all these go to 22 foot-pounds of torque 106 inch pounds for the valve covers I'm getting down to the end of this we got the gasket on there we're going to go ahead and place the cover on and run the bolts in but we're just going to leave them loose so this thing can still move around and then I'm gonna let the harmonic balancer located in position so okay all right here is the tricky part we're going to use the harmonic balancer to locate that thing so we're going to start feeding it over the top of the crankshaft and then you got to have some kind of tool and this is the old bolt I welded into parts of this harmonic balancer installer that I borrowed from O'Reilly's I'm not sure if they'll take it back but that's what I'm going to use uh it's got to feed in there and then you got to press this thing on you can at least press it on a little way so you can get the new bolt on there and uh and be able to grab enough threads to press this thing the rest of the way in all right let's see if we can put the new bolt in there and drive it the rest of the way home [Music] all right the new bolt is in there I got about a half inch of good threads on there I'm going to use the impact to drive it the rest of the way in they say to torque it to 240 foot-pounds I don't have anything that makes 240 foot-pounds this thing makes a whole bunch so I'm gonna torque I'm Gonna Keep blasting it in until it stops and then we'll try to make sure that this plate right here is lined up with the uh steering pump perfect both lined up it is always seated in there that is good to go I'm going to do one pass on these bolts just give them getting them snug and then I'll go back around and give them 18 foot pounds all right the water pump goes on 10 millimeter sockets on these first pass 11 foot pounds the second pass 22 foot pounds thank you all right well some of you've probably seen my dad before in some of the videos especially when we're working on the 6l90 transmission and uh it's so much fun having them back in the shop helping us turn wrenches he is definitely the person who motivated the mechanical part of me as I remember watching him turn wrenches on our cars when we were little kids muscle Plus have some of my really good buddies here to help me get this engine back in the truck but now it's time for the real test how's it going to do when we turn the key so here we go for the first attempt at a start oh bring the Thunder [Music] [Music] nice that's pretty freaking loud louder than before right I saw you jump I wish I was you doing you oh man all right well this is a pretty exciting announcement NTD racing now has its own store so go to ntdracing.com and click on store and I'll take you to this page and check out these beautiful NTD racing members and if you want to look like one of them scroll on down and we have some shirts here for ladies we've got some really cool shirts for guys and we're gonna have a lot more designs coming in the near future I look forward to meeting the first person wearing the NTD racing gear one of the desert races we had honcho sounds so amazing and I hope that you got something out of that video I know that I will be returning to that video when I need to just remember a torque spec or just remember how to do this whole process because there's a lot of steps to it and I got a lot of it from other YouTubers that I watch and I just try to put all the information I had into one place so that I could use later and hopefully you can too if you like what you saw here there's a lot of other great content you're not going to want to miss as we're getting this truck ready for the mid 400 in a couple weeks and then we're gonna get two trucks ready for the Baja 1000 including a truck we call Lefty which we're building from scratch there are a bunch of videos in our library where even if I can see how we build every part of Lefty and get it ready for the next race and with that hopefully I talked you into subscribing to our Channel maybe hitting the like button or leaving a comment those things definitely help us out and we sure do appreciate it and we'll see in the next episode take care of yourself

Channel: NTD Racing

Views: 17,636

Keywords: How to swap an LS Cam, ls cam, ls1, silverado, camaro, vortec, ls swap, cam install, 5.3, sierra, lsx, corvette, hp tuners, cam swap, gm, gmc, 6.0, cam, ls cam swap, 5.3 cam, ss, ls2, ls turbo, ls turbo truck, how to, 4.8, hptuners, lm7, cheap, budget, chevy, swap, junkyard ls power, 5.3 cam install, how to cam a 5.3 silverado, ls1 tips, cam and springs, ls cam swap how to, ls cam swap guide, ls cam swap video, texas speed cam, ls1 cam install, 4.8 cam, ls3 cam, Sloppy best cam, best cam

Id: dDc-FpRVnN8

Length: 24min 53sec (1493 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 23 2023