so I'm going to be installing a turbo on my truck i have a cam and new heads that need to be installed, i've pulled and installed engines, swapped intakes, swapped external parts, mild suspension & etc. work but never really done internal work like a cam or even heads always let some one else do it

so how hard is it to swap cams and get the cam and crank gears lined up in a lq4?

is there any specialty tools needed?

i want to give it a try but worried about my skills.......

 

Lol these LS motors are the easiest to work on. For timing put cylinder 1on top dead center or the dot on the crank sprocket straight up and the dot on the cam sprocket facing straight down at the crank sprocket. So crank faces 12 oclock and the cam sprocket faces 6 oclock. Before you pull the cam out if your going to have the heads off pull the lifters so that none fall in. Do not reuse your headbolts as they are torque to yield. In other words once u pull em out toss em in the trash. People like using the LS9 headgaskets for boosted applications and ARP headstuds or just their bolts. There is plenty of info on how to do alot of this stuff on here just have to search abit.

 

you can also just loosen the rockers and pull the pushrods out and rotate the old cam a few times and the lifters "should" stay stuck in the cups so you can pull the cam out without removing the heads.

 

heads and lifters would be removed since i'm going with new lifter, pushrods, heads & cam

just never did one worried about goofing it up

 

Search Ls1howto in google. Very detailed steps in doing a cam swap. That's what I followed for mine

 

Too bad you're not in the DFW area...tons of guys around here always willing to come over and at least keep an eye on things. I was skeptical with my first cam install but its really not all that bad once you get into it.