The slight perception of an imbalance of the engine sound while running. Once it caught my attention, I knew that it was related to the slightly 'off' odor of the exhaust that I would catch a whiff of on occasion. To determine what it could be, I did some hard accelerations - maybe a weak ignition system component starting to fail?
Since they were almost 5 years old,
I replaced the cap, rotor, plugs & wires. Drove it again & confirmed that it was not an ignition component like I hoped it was. I knew then that I was dealing with a mechanical issue, so off comes the valve cover to check the valvetrain. Using a dial indication, I did a measurement of the valve opening & confirmed my suspicion - my cam lobes were wearing off.So, what to do now.... :-k
Just replace the cam?
Upgrade to the roller cam?
Dump the van & get some other vehicle?
Well after thinking about it, I opted to do the upgrade I had thought about doing a while ago - put on the Vortec heads & the roller cam. I had a set of used heads at home along with a roller cam set up (guides, holder & pushrods) & just needed the Vortec intake to complete the package.
Only one manufacturer of the intake that I need & it is made by GM Performance.
Ordered & received this:
Got my heads checked/reworked/freshened up down the street by a local machine shop - Fortins http://www.fortins.com/fortins_engines.php.
Sent my good core cam (out of a '98 pickup) to Colt Cams http://www.coltcams.com/ & got it reground to a mild performance grind (C.804.H)
Currently I am in the process of getting the last detail items I need to make the job go as smoothly as I can & will be doing this on a weekend soon.
Looking forward to getting this done as I should see 60 - 80 horsepower increase.
