Chevy & GMC Vans

I knew something was wrong, I could just barely feel & hear it.
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.

so by monday afternoon this post should be complete with a nice video of a big smoke show right.

How many clicks on the cam that you just took out?

Sounds like a good plan.

I can't think of one new car manufacture that has a flat tappet cam.I does kind of make sense that they followed suit to go to roller cams for emissions/performance and the fact the good stuff was taken out of the oils.

So a move to a roller cam is the right way to go.Roller rockers on the other hand for the street is kind of a waste.


James-what is the cam lobe center lines??.

I knew there had to be more to this post than that smoke screen topic title...lol

Lookin forward to the vid James

Kidhauler wrote:so by monday afternoon this post should be complete with a nice video of a big smoke show right.

Not too far off Kevin, the plan is it start on a Friday night (probably Mar 25th) & finish on the Saturday.

As to a smokey burnt out video .... this old one will have to do for now.

loopie wrote:How many clicks on the cam that you just took out?

Not nearly as many as I should have gotten, approx. 60,000 klms.

1Gary wrote:James-what is the cam lobe center lines??.

It's a cam from a '98 p/u, reground to the spec C.804.H.

Have a look at the spec. sheet here. Click on profiles / domestic / Chevy / Chevy V8 305-350, '88up HYD.

Boo to the misfire,
to the new top end

See the L05 'VIN K' upgrade to L31 'VIN R' Vortec heads & cam thread to see the upgrade as it begins tomorrow.

Smoke shows always look much better with a posi so both tires smoke. The good old one tire fire just kind of lacks something. It's like having a bowl of ice cream without chocolate sprinkles. It's still good just not as good as it could have been.