cali smog slash cam question - Southern California Area - Third Generation F-Body Message Boards

koolcutta · 01-22-2008, 01:51 PM

Hi guys have a question about smoging my car and putting a different cam in it. here is the history on my car 91 Z28 L98 with every option except 1le and T-Tops. I bought the when I was 16 in 2000 it was a under cover cop car for the San Fran police dept and had 32K miles on. In 2003 I burned a valve on it with 74K on it. I least I believe that the problem car only thing i Know for sure is the car has a miss. Since I was in college at the time I opted to buy a new car and parked this and tagged it non-op. Now its 2008 and my mom wants the car out of her garage so I 'm bringing it down to Los Angeles where I live now with hopes of getting her back on the rode. It still runs and drives but has the miss. OK now for the question since the car has been non op for 5 years will have to do a special smog I.E referee or will it just be regular smog. Funny part this car has only been smogged once in its life back in 2001 I think the police dept are exempt from smog or at least carfax shows no history before me.
My second question is since I will be doing a valve job I'll probably be upgrading the entire top end since it will be off anyways but Is there a cam that I can use that will not require a new chip. I read all the post on passing smog with hot cams and ZZ4 cam etc , but I believe some of those guys did extensive tuning. Any guys here in Cali have experience slapping a new cam in a speed density car with out any smog or tune problems.

Dyno Don · 01-22-2008, 02:52 PM

That my friend should not be done.
If the cam works better, then it needs tuning.

In those years they had a lot of problems with injectors, it might be that instead of a burnt valve.

When I got my TA I thought the same thing, changed out the one injector I found bad, and it ran like a top with 174k on the clock.

Russ-So Cal · 01-22-2008, 06:14 PM

Listen to Don. If you can get together with him, have Don check out the car for you when you bring it down. It is much less expensive to have a pro like, Don look it over than to start throwing parts at it. If you want to change the cam for more power, don't worry about a chip. Kevin can burn you a new chip. Even if you don't change the cam, your stock chip has a fuel economy mode built in that was turned off from the factory. It is worth it to have Kevin do a custom chip just to get the fuel economy mode turned on.

I forgot to mention, you don't need to go to a referee to get it smogged and into operational mode from non-op. Just get a red temporary operating permit to allow you to drive the car and get it smogged.

koolcutta · 01-22-2008, 09:28 PM

Thanks for clearing my questions up for me. Good to know I wont have any extra headache trying to get the car resmogged once fixed. Now I'll just focus on finding why its missing before I spend all my money on performance parts. I plan to tow it down here this spring. So that’s when the fun will begin, Don thanks for the tip on the fuel injector I will for sure check out everything I can before I start pulling heads, even though it will be a little embarrassing if I find out I parked the car for 5 years over a small issue but I guess it will be more embarrassing if I pull the heads and find no burnt valve.

Kevin91Z · 01-22-2008, 10:06 PM

The biggest cam you can use with stock heads is the Compucam 2032. Its 214/220 with .460 lift or so. However, while you have the intake apart you might as well change the springs, as the stock springs are almost 20 years old by now and worn out. Then you can run a higher lift camshaft, but then you have to replace the rocker arm studs with screw-in's. By the time you upgrade all the little things to make the stock heads work with better camshafts, you've spent almost as much as a new set of aftermarket heads that flow 50% better than stock heads right out of the box. In other words, do the cam and heads at the same time, so you can match them together.