Are there any additional costs incurred when replacing a cam?
My ride's done 190000k so is it even worth it??
I can't justify spending more than $1000 on a 200k 'freshen up'.

Honest feedback is appreciated.

Replacing a cam as in upgrading? Like a reground cam or a new billet?

I dont see any issues with chucking in an upgraded cam with 200k's on the clock, ive got over 220k's now and im still considering how big a cam i want to put in it

Additional costs, depends on what you wanna do. Some people get a vernier cam gear installed to dial in the cam properly and get the most out of it while others dont. I dont know about anyone else, but if i was gonna put a new billet cam in id get a new set of lifters so that the lifters wear in with the new cam. I dont know if its necessary with reground cams or not though. Also might need an extra set of shims for the rocker arms if fitting a reground cam

In short, you could get a good improvement in performance by doing just your cam and you realistically need to budget about $750 - $800 to get it done. You could save something like $250 - $300 by doing the installation and setup yourself.

Your car should have Tickford engine as std - a cam upgrade to something like a JMM Dev 3 or Dev 3HL or the equivalent Wade Cams spec (1004 or 1604?) would be a nice improvement. You should already have XR6 head (ie. upgraded springs and harder valve guides plus slightly larger exhaust valves than std I6) - so make that clear to anyone you're talking to about cams.

The significance of your engine already having XR6 head is that you shouldn't need to replace the valve springs unless going to a really wild cam - also you can have peace of mind that the guides are up to job too.

It's well worth having an adjustable cam gear fitted straight up and dialled in properly. You're looking at about $400 for a cam (get the supplier to include any shims you'll need), not sure how much an adjustable gear is these days, maybe $50? - and you should use a new cam gear bolt (about $3.10 from Ford). Installation should be no more than 3 hours labour - I'd budget about $250 - $300 for that but scream blue murder if it's more.

I can think of worse ways of spending my K-Rudd funny money!!!

Thanks for the tips.

As a matter of fact I just finished bolting my JMM cam into my otherwise stock as a rock EF 2 a little while ago - ie. it has absolutely std 2.25 exhaust etc. and the car has 240 000km on it - so this is probably a good exercise to give people an idea of what a cam alone can do for them.

Have only taken it for a blockie so it's really too soon to be able to give a sensible overall assessment of the difference - especially as I've only been driving the EF for a couple of weeks anyway and still getting used to the slushbox (not intending to do manual conversion - this is cruiser not a bruiser - but geez I do miss it) - BUT I can say it definitely feels AT LEAST 10-15% better in seat of the pants push straight up and beyond that is much more effortless overall. For example around the corner from home there's quite a steep hill on which the car would normally struggle immediately and be kicked down to 2nd and with me holding in a fair bit of pedal to get her over the top - when I just hit that hill on my blockie it took very little initial pedal, she only dropped to 3rd and effortlessly went up and over

If you have a manual go for a Wade 1673, auto go for a 1636.
Other cams arent much bigger than stock, and an XR cam is slightly bigger than stock.
The DEV3 cams arent very big at all either, compared to your stock XR cam theres bugger all difference.

Oh, I should point out that of course I will be in the near future swapping over the exhaust system from the ED - as well as eventually swapping the Ef XR6 head - this initial changeover of the cam alone was to see what just the cam alone did.