I have an 88 L98 engine and was wondering what i would have to do to put in a zz4 cam... i would def buy new lifters while i was swapping cams, but would i need to buy diffrent rockers and burn a chip for the cam or would the stock ecu even handle a after market cam? car has a holley stealth ram intake with headers and full 3" exh.

 

Need new valvesprings and likely beehives to gain lift clearance to run that cam or do shims with offset locks to gain some clearance and measure what you have.

Stock heads seem to max out at .470-.480". That cam is over .510 so you need more room.

May not need new lifters but new ones wouldnt hurt. Would need to retune for best gains with the cam. Honestly i wouldnt bother doin zz4 cam on stock motor. I would do something abit bigger on duration but still lower on lift to work on stock heads with spring mod

 

Kinda sucks to do a cam without pulling the heads off, especially if you've never changed springs before.
I usually wait til I have to rebuild or change my motor or do heads.

 

Im really no expert on this stuff... what would you recomend for a cam to acheive decent gains? and what other parts would i need to buy?

 

Just curious as to why you say it sucks without pulling the heads? The heads being off doesnt make getting the cam out any easier. I've swapped cams a few times without pulling the heads.

 

Id be interested in checking out the alex's parts hyd roller spring kit which gives around .550" capability it says. There is a guy here with a .540 lift cam on vortec heads running that kit and it seems to work fine. That way you can run something like comp 218-224 or a hotcam 218-228 on that motor and really start having some fun. 30 hp+ gain easily with hsr.


I think doin springs in car would suck but i guess it depends on the tool used. Doing springs with heads off is easy with any tool. Doing heads cam with motor in car is easy, no issues there

 

If i was going to go that far i would just send my heads off to be ported/polished and rebuilt for a bigger cam... from what ive read the stock heads are fairly decent. so the stock ECM will handle all of this im guessing? with a good tune of course.

 

http://www.jegs.com/i/Comp+Cams/249/K08-422-8/10002/-1 Maybe something like that with head work is probaly what i will do.

 

It should run on stock tune with some timing and fuel pressure adjustments but best gains are in a custom tune ofcourse

 

Anyway, my heads have no machine work and I run comp cam springs/retainers on my vortecs with .510" lift.