whats involved in doing an in-the-car cam swap. i would like to do it without pulling the motor, so whats involved? just the cam, no lifters or anything. thanx

Pull intake, lifters, waterpump, ballancer, oil pan (if you don't
know how to sneak the timing chain cover back on), timing chain
cover, timing chain, radiator, condenser then slide the cam out.

Reverse the procedure to reinstall.

Just make sure you are REEEEEEEEAAALLY careful sliding the new cam in. You don't want to screw up the cam bearings.

Take your time pulling and sticking the cam. CamaroX84 is right,
don't mess up the cam bearings. Just take it slow and easy and
rotate the cam back and forth as you go and you should have
no problems.

You may want to replace the cam bearings while you're doin that too. I think they're only like 12 bucks or somethin.

Now that would be tough to do with the motor in the car.

Lol, sorry, for some reason I was thinking it was out of the car even though the topic says "in car." Guess you can't do the bearings then. Thanks for correcting me swapmaster.

Swapmaster, not saying your wrong but why pull the oil pan??

For those of our regular viewers who may pull the cover off the
front of the pan without regard for the one piece pan gasket.
Even if a newbie gets it off ok, they may be stumped as to how
to get it back on without dropping the pan. It may be simpler for
them to at least loosten the bolts and let the pan hang under the
car.

I just installed a LT1 cam in my 350 motor sitting on the engine stand it took all of about 2 hours. the engine is brand new and i didnt have any intake on so it went fast. the only thing that slowed me down was finding a harmonic balenser puller. i went to auto zone and rented one. i still have to put the balenser back on and have to find the tool fortat. auto zone dont have one. also, i got the timing cover off without touching the oil pan. however, i did have to loosen the oil pan bolts to get the cover back on. some people may get lucky and get it back on without loosening the bolts but i just turned the engine upside down loosening them. .BTW it was my first cam install and i gave myself a pat on the back for a great job done.

If you clip the tips off the pan gasket groove that hungup on the
way off, you can slip it back in fairly easily.

IT's a PITA, I agree drop the pan a little in the front at least, it's not too hard to get the timing cover off, but I couldn't get it back on without a lot of cursing prying etc. You can probably just rotate the A/C condenser if you;re careful, saves draining the refrigerant. All in all probably took me close to 20 hrs start to finsh including valve seals, RR, AFPR. Goodluck.

Been there before and done that. The darn thing leak forever until I sold it ( 307 pontiac ventura '72) to someone who knew how to fix it. Is there really a correct way to do this without touching the oil pan ? I'm gettin ready to do a cam swap myself. Thanx

The correct way would be to loosten the pan and let the front drop enough so the tips don't hang up when you put it back on.
On the older engines without the one piece pan gasket you would need to pull the pan out of the car and replace the pan gaskets also.

I always goop the corners up with silicon where you clip the tips off and have never had one leak. Could be just luck.

gm sels a gasket for it it's two pieces.the bottom lip of the timing cover sits in the notch then you slide the cover on,a little dab of sillycone and you'll have no problems.or you could spend the 13 bucks to get a two piece cover so you'll never have to worry about the gasket again