If it possible to put in an lt1 cam without removing the heads on a stockish (exhaust and ignition) 305 tbi motor?

What kind of performance will I get out it?

Will the stock heads work at the moment and accept the cams lift?

what other parts am I going to need? ( lifters springs)

am going to do the heads and intake/tbi later just real poor and want to go fast NOW.

 

wouldn't that be a dream come true....

sorry no advice for you on the heads, you should be able to do the cam without pulling the heads all the way off though, i believe.

 

Not to be a smartass here... but you may want to get some experienced help to do this cam swap, if you're asking whether or not the cylinder heads have to removed to swap cams...

- Remove distributor
- Remove intake
- front accessories
- Balancer
- timing chain cover
- timing chain, crank and cam gears
- valve covers
- rocker arms
- pushrods
- lifters
- old camshaft

Reverse to install.


You're going to need a puller for the harmonic balancer, a puller for the cam and crank gears, and installers for both help.

HTH

 

ctandc has it right, just remember to drop the oil pan a little in the front so the lip on the timing cover doesnt rip the hell out of your oil pan gasket.

 

Tried that on mine .. didnt work to well. I took every bolt but the back 2 out of the oil pan and still wouldnt clear enough. So, i wound up cutting the gasket, siliconed it to the cover, jimmied the cover out, and used a whole lotta RTV on that. No drips yet, I got a new gasket waiting installation if it leaks. Never start a LT1 cam install when you start to get a cold, because mine tuned into the flu and it took me 4 days to complete it. That sucked.

Heads can stay on. The radiator/fan werent mentioned to e removed but they are a given anyways. The front accessories didn't have to be removed. If you want more room you can take them off but that flu thing had a affect on me. just the water pump and crank pulley/ balancer.

I had to take out the vertical bracket that sits in front of the radiator out to the cam could be removed. Remember to get a shoebox of some sort to keep track of the pushrods, rockers and lifters.

Any more ?'s Pm or instant message me.

 

Gotta love the older 70's style two piece oil pan gaskets . Was getting ready to pull my motor(just had to unbolt the trans, which is the hardest part) and then i found out that the timing chain cover has its own gasket and it just slippes right off and back on again. Which brings me to a good point that it would probably be adventagious to just pull the motor to swap the cam with one of the newer one piece gasket seals taht you have now. Even though the oil control is better with the neoprine ones, they still leak and its not a bad idea to replace it. If you leave the engine in, youll have to ghetto rig the cover to get it to go back on and seal. And, while you have the motor out, you can put in a better tc as well to replace the crap 1200 rpm stall converter that it has. If you dont have all the cash to do this now, then id wait. Youll need better exaust, headers, and a good intake at the very least to "go fast now".

 

For the newer engines, there's no need to pull the engine. Every time I do a cam change with the engine IN the car, I get everything pulled off I need, and then I remove ALL the oil pan bolts to drop the pan down. Then when everything is back together, and I'm ready to put the timing cover back on, I just pull the motor mount bolts, jack or chain the motor to move it up a bit, then I slide a new 1 piece oil pan gasket on, and it's done, and no extra silicone needed.


HTH

 

from the above you should get a good idea of whats involved and which way you can attack it but if i where you, id go for the basic mods first before doing the cam swap. Removeing the junk stock exaust, manifolds and intake can do wonders for a car. Youll get very good results if you do the easy stuff first like exaust and induction. After that, youll probably want to get into prom burning as well. If you dont do these first, that cam is pretty much useless. Putting int he cam before doing all the stuff thats needed to support the extra power will be like building a house on its roof. Youll need to have those in place before the cam so you might as well put it on hold for now.