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Monsoon cams, a love story.

1K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  Papa_D 
#1 ·
I had purchased the cams several weeks ago and had intended to install them in short order but all I did with my babies for the past three weeks was read them bedtime stories. I had also planned to do a well documented double install with Thrust Titan but he fell ill and was way too sick for that. My friend and mechanic offered to do them last Sunday and I jumped at the chance. I knew we were in for a bit of rain but I had no Idea how bad it would be. I actually started on them Saturday afternoon and worked on them for a couple hours but stopped because it was getting ready to rain, lol, if I had only known what was in store the following day. Sunday I got up bright and cheerful at 6am and waited for my friend to show outside his house. Time passed and I went to the parts store to get some engine assembly lube ratchet extensions and RTV and got back about 9:45 to find my friend hard at work. I apologized for being tardy and got right to it. The left bank (drivers side) went in without incident and quickly enough because of the technique he used. We never turned the motor and only measured a few lifter clearances. They were all between .001 and .0015 too short, too much gap. After discussing it for a minute we decided to continue because his labor is cheap for me and we can always redo it. The right bank wasn't so smooth and after having gotten a 10x10 sun tent because of mild rain about 45 min earlier I realized it was not going to suffice for the rain in store. 10 minutes later I was trying to hold the tent from blowing away and getting soaking wet from sideways rain. It lasted for about half an hour and let up a bit, long enough for us to get the passenger side rocker cover off only to discover a loose bolt. One of the cam bracket bolts was sticking up about half an inch and I was real glad I decided to do some cams or that bolt would likely have ended up destroying something. We did that side without incident after a couple more bouts with the rain, and an extended lunch by my friend while I kept working. He got back after I had changed the oil and gotten all the covers cleaned up and ready to go back on. We spent the next two hours on reassembly of everything and finished up about 5:45pm. The technique he used was to replace one cam at a time while holding the sprocket in place to maintain it's position on the timing chain and not even measuring the passenger side. We discussed this after we had the right bank back together and he said he was confident nothing bad was going to happen so I let it go. Do I recommend this approach, in a word, no. I recommend doing it the way the dealer recommends it be done if you want to be on the safe side and don't have a good friend that's willing to fix anything he breaks and is capable of doing so should that occur. The way the cams should be done is to remove the cams and lifters, log all the lifter sizes, put in the new cams, carefully measure all the gaps, order the proper sized lifters, install everything when the lifters arrive, measure them again, break them in, measure hot clearance, replace more lifters if needed and that will all take about a week and after waiting on parts and about 20 hours of labor. The method we used is not recommended because if you end up with too little clearance you could bend a valve and too much and you may bugger up a lifter or cam lobe. Why did I do this you may ask? I gambled that my friend that was correct and knew he would fix it if he was wrong. How do I like the cams you may ask. MAN THEY ARE FREAKING AWESOME. Badabubububadabubububadabububu YEAH BABY, SHE"S GONNA RUN NOW. I switched to the stock map on the UpRev tune and drove it about 140 miles before I couldn't help myself any longer, sorry Tommy, I have no will power and I punched it today, lol. I figured I ran my truck to the speed limiter on the day I bought it so what the heck. Here again I would not recommend this because if she is running lean you could cause detonation. You should monitor the AFR and timing with UpRev before getting on it to be on the safe side. These things are gonna pull hard up top and I can't wait till I get them broken in, check my tune and go racing. I had some lifter noise on startup and that has not gone away entirely but I will drive it for a few hundred miles and consult with my friend again. I may never replace the noisy lifters because they aren't that noisy and my friend will fix whatever, whenever. Do I recommend this to the average individual? Not on your life unless you have a good friend that's a mechanic and if I had this done at the dealer, I would want them to take care of any excess noise. I have a confession, I am in love with my truck all over again like the day she was new.
:haveredfl
 
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#2 ·
That is sweet...im gonna be getting mine shortly....but i know i will take the proper approach in installing them.....let me know how it runs!!!!
 
#3 ·
quikslvr7 said:
That is sweet...im gonna be getting mine shortly....but i know i will take the proper approach in installing them.....let me know how it runs!!!!
I believe she'll be fine and I'll keep you posted. Sadly enough, most people who have this done will be getting a very similar install and it will cost them a heck of a lot more. Be prepared to install some replacement lifters if you want your clearances to be correct. I know mine are all a bit loose and I suspect many people will be in the same boat. Good luck with the install.
 
#5 ·
konigfritz said:
That's awsome!!

Good write up.

Hope all is well with thrust.
Thanks man, I spoke with him on Monday and he's pretty sick but getting better and I'm gonna stop by and see him later this week if all goes well.
 
#7 ·
BRACEYOSELF777 said:
Hope all goes well....thats a pretty quick install...these cams are a PITA to install I bet.
They would be if you speced everything out and installed new lifters to keep the gaps correct. It amounts to installing everything twice.
 
#8 ·
Good deal man. Glad to hear you like! I was waiting for someone else to note the lifter noise is more apparent now. The VK56 always had a little "tick" to it anyway, now it just seems like someone turned the volume up on them a notch or two. I guess no one ever talked you out of them??? LOL
 
#9 ·
roy365 said:
Good deal man. Glad to hear you like! I was waiting for someone else to note the lifter noise is more apparent now. The VK56 always had a little "tick" to it anyway, now it just seems like someone turned the volume up on them a notch or two. I guess no one ever talked you out of them??? LOL
No, nobody could come up with a rational argument to the contrary but I heard a lot of "GO FOR IT MAN", lol. I think as I said before, these cams were engineered to be on the loose side, that's purely a guess but from what I've seen so far that would make sense. Maybe the test vehicles all had taller lifters than ours but my guess is that it may have been intentional to stay on the loose side of the clearance specs. I would have if I were them. Noisy is always better than bending a valve, lol. I think I have one on the right bank that is noisier than the rest and I'm waiting to see how it does during the break in period, if it gets louder I may go back in and do them all. In the mean time for the first 500 miles I'm running in the stock tune and letting the truck get used to all the extra air. I will do some data logging this week after the new puter is up and running but I didn't do a re flash on mine to put the cam tune on it yet. I figured these cams were made for the stock vehicle so they should do OK with the stock tune. She is learning the mod and running a little better every day but I only have 150 miles on it so far.
 
#10 ·
That sounds like a nice set up you have there, mechanic friend that has a clue. Oh I like the cams too.

BUT what happened, you had one of your stock cam bracket bolt loose!!!???!!! WTH is that about. Were the rest tight? That should not happen and in all my years of tearing up and fixing engines I have never seen a stock over head cam bracket bolt loose, not even on any street bikes that rev way more than our trucks do.
 
#11 ·
Shane06fl said:
That sounds like a nice set up you have there, mechanic friend that has a clue. Oh I like the cams too.

BUT what happened, you had one of your stock cam bracket bolt loose!!!???!!! WTH is that about. Were the rest tight? That should not happen and in all my years of tearing up and fixing engines I have never seen a stock over head cam bracket bolt loose, not even on any street bikes that rev way more than our trucks do.
Yeah it is a great setup and he lives right across the street, I am a very lucky guy when it comes to having our trucks worked on. If I actually needed something fixed in a hurry, he would work in whatever weather till the middle of the night if need be, he's a heck of a great guy and always gets paid by me anyway. He gets stiffed a lot, he'll work two or three hours on something and they bring over a couple of 12 packs, it's pretty lame if you ask me but he's just too nice a guy I guess. As far as the cam bracket bolt goes, only one was loose and I'm guessing it came from the factory that way and has been slowly working it's way out for 25000 miles.
 
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