Ok here goes I have a custom grind crow cam, from a mate, dont know the specs but Kostecki have a machine that can read the cams grind , duration, etc. Will they be able to tell me how many shimms per rocker I will need or is it easy to tell myself?

you dont need someone to tell you how many shims you need, you put the cam in the engine, measure the lash, and add shims accordingly.

You sure you need shims at all - crow dont normally do regrind cams.

some/most people just put shims in untill there is minimal movement in the rocker gear.

others will get all the shims made up so that all hla's are exactly the same.

1st method is easy, second takes someone who knows what their doing and has the req equipment.

p.s. i had to get my cam measured up to find out out its specs aswell, hard to install a cam properly not knowing

you dont need the shims machined to be exactly the same. The whole purpose of hydraulic lash adjusters are that they automatically correct the amount of lash. If HLA is shimmed a few thou less than the next, it will pump up more to make up the slack.

Also - its very easy to measure the specs of a cam yourself if you have a dial indicator

I recently went to rpd with voxace to get rocker gear done, and if you dont know what ur doing, I wouldnt go mucking around with it yourself. My say would be, if u have to ask in this topic, I wouldnt try it yourself

That's a bit of a cop out response. If everyone had that attitude we would still be in the stone age!

If you want to give it a go, just take your time, do a google search on shimming cams and you will be fine. About the worst case scenario is you will have some noisy lifters if you get it wrong. Big deal you just try again.

Installing the cam is easy too. I don't know how people stuff it up you just need to follow some basic rules. The main one is KEEP THE TIMING CHAIN TIGHT. If you don't do that then you will need to remove the adjuster and add many hours of stuffing around. If you keep that timing chain real tight the cam change will take a whole 1 hour. By keeping it tight I mean make sure there is always vertical pressure on the chain. My dodgey method is a broom handle with a few bricks on the end resting on the radiator support with on end through the cam sprocket. Sounds dodgey but has never failed and costs nothing.

Good luck and have fun learning.

cheers
Scott

how does it take hours to remove and reinstall the power steering pump?
it couldnt be more than 6 bolts. Resetting the chain tensioner is a good idea anyway as it enables you to tel if its working correctly and isnt burred up. also you dont have to worry about the tension on the chain changing during the cam install process. for 15min stuffing around its worth it. we did a car just the other day and the tensioner was jammed. however we removed it and freed it up and it now works properly again.. all for 15min work.


-mitch.

Quite agree as I have replaced literally hundreds of timing chains on many different cars ALWAYS remove the tensioner and reset it making sure it does its job properly and you don't have troublrs later down the track

Hey EFXRWGN, when I did mine I just followed the gregory's manual. They give you a clearance of 0.4 to 1.1mm measured with feeler guage between the rocker arm roller and the cam shaft, the HLA has to be collapsed and the cam in a certain position. Worked for me. Just have to make sure the HLA is completely collapsed or you get wrong readings. Good Luck.

macguyver is talking about the TIMING CHAIN tension. If you bugger the timing up via the chain then the front of the motor has to come apart to reset it again.

the way i do it at work is to get 3 cable ties and tie the chain to the cam sprocket before pulling the cam out this ensurres that the chain will not move a tooth or two on the sprocket keeping everything timed as if is have been been of the car.

cheers