After researching, a mod I was looking to do was a cam swap. I talked to two performance mechanics and both said that for the money, a cam swap by itself is not worth the money. They would only do recommend a cam swap if there were other mods to the engine.

Basically they stated that the amount of performance gained alone wasn't worth the money it would cost.

Anyone agree?

 

performance cost money.
how fast you can go depends on how much you have to spend.

as for advice for your two mechanics.
your money will look just as good in their pockets as it would in someone else's pocket.

 

LSx engines already have at least 9.5:1 compression, good flowing heads, intake, and the factory exhaust manifolds look like a set of shorty headers when you look inside them. The factory has already done a lot of the improvements that the builder has to do. A cam & springs alone are a good mod in my opinion. If you are talking about a gen1 sbc or something else then the cam alone won't make as big of a difference as a gen 3.

 

hell yes they are worth it, plus they sound cool too! i dont think you can go wrong buying a cam, youll probably want a nice stall to go with it too and get your tune optimized!

 

Exactly what Mark said.

IMO statements like the ones made by those mechanics just indicate they are trapped in an sbc mentality or know nothing about genIII engines. Either way, find someone who knows the engine.

 

agreed, I got more usable power increase and more power for just driving around from my small 212/218 than I did from any other mod. Of course, that power increase just gets better when you start adding complimentary mods like headers. You will notice a substantial increase from cam, headers, and tune. You can usually find deals on cams and headers in the classifieds. I just sold my pacesetters and Y for $170 less than I paid and they were brand new, never on the truck. Im also going to be selling my cam in the next couple of weeks

 

I have a book that states that when GM put together the LSX motors, they didnt put a lot of R&D into the camshafts. They did but they engineered it for economy rather than performance. There is much to be gained from a camshaft. The book actually stated that a camshaft is the best mod you can do for an LSX motor.

As for money, heres the scenerio: Guys with just cam, headers, free exhaust, stall and gears ($2500-3000) are actually outrunning guys that spent $4000+ on a Turbo/supercharger setup.

 

Truckin' magazine did a nice write up on our engines and about the best mods. the mods they emphasized(sp.) where: Free flowing airbox components(not necessarily a CAI), Cat back exhaust, 100 hp wet shots, Magnacharger Radix, Cam, Lt headers, and tuning software like Hptuners or LS1edit. They where also talking about this book called "how to build high performance ls1/ls6 v8's. looks like it would be a very good write up, has anyone ever checked it out? a link to the book: cartechbooks.com

 

absolutley worth it, Just do a spring swap, and a stall, maybe a lil headwork with it and youll come out with quite a bit of gain, depending on cam choice, and stall etc....If you can do it yourself even better. Its not that difficult. Plus thoes mechanics would take the money, as well as anyone else doing that work..

 

I do own this book and it was the best 18 bucks (or Xmas present ) ever spent. It references a lot of things however with the growing popularity of our motors, it is only accurate up to year 2003. I wish there would an updated version comming out soon. It has a lot of good info from bores and strokes to stock cam info to a 1200 hp 387 C5R block. Its an excellent read and i would highly reccomend it to anyone especially to someone that is new to the LSX motors.