i've never had to mess with cams or valve springs before, so excuse my ignorance.

i posted earlier about maybe buying a marine engine. the guy said the current cam has alot of low-end torque, cause its needed to launch the boat. it also has shorter valve springs because i don't remember why. he's including an LT1 cam and valve springs though in the deal.

my question is how hard is it to swap out a cam and valve springs? is it basically just swap out and go, or does stuff have to be configured? if i buy this, i won't have enough money for a shop to do any, or little, configuration, so hopefully it's a pretty straightforward swap. and before you say it, yeah i already searched and couldn't find anything i can really use. any help would be appreciated.

 

The valve springs aren't any different.

If the guy thinks a boat motor needs low-end torque rather than top-end HP, he's not very familiar with fluid dynamics. Just to give you some idea, my boat (20' with a F*rd 302) comes out of the hole at about 2500 RPM at WOT, and cruises at 4400 RPM max. It does about 3200 RPM at 35 mph. It spends no time whatsoever (except for idling) below 2500.

 

depends what a persons idea is of low end grunt. to me any engine that spends its time below 4500 rpm is designed with low end power in mind. mid range to me would be 2500-5500 and top end would be 3000-6000+. i dont know a hole lot about boats but i do know they dont have " 1st,2nd,3rd" gears its just drive. so the motor has to have a "broad" power band to get the boat out of the water and on a plain. so unless you mess with the prop angle or gear ratio most boats will max out between 4000-4500 rpm...... this goes for your run of the mill stock boat. with out that low end grunt you would be plowing water for a while.