I've been thinking of throwing a cam in my 22re.

I imagine this helps power, but how does it affect mileage?

What kind of power increases might I see?

What kind of mileage increase/decrease?

What cams do you guys reccomend and ballpark price?

How involved is instalation?

Thanks -Seth

 

Is it not worth doing?

 

It isn't too bad. We put a TRD stage 1 (smog legal) in my son's 85. Can't tell you the mileage before or after. Was able to feel the power diff. We did it during an engine teardown.

All head bolts have to come out. Remove the cam caps and replace cam. It can be done by itself (guy I worked with did it a lot) but you do run the risk of a head gasket leak (he had about a 10% failure rate on head gasket leak). Do the chain with steel guides and a head gasket at the same time to be safe.

 

Deathrunner,

Judging from the questions you asked, I'd suggest you aren't ready for anything but a stock camshaft. Camshafts come in all sorts of flavors, and until you *know* what you want, and set the rest of the engine up for it, you'd likely end up with a mess and get worse power and worse gas mileage.

#1 mistake people make with "performance" camshafts is buying too much camshaft. Folks get all excited about getting a racing camshaft because it sounds fast. When in reality, it's dog slow on the street.

If you're hellbent on buying one, and your engine is stock or essentially stock, and you drive on the streets and trails, I'd suggest you contact EngineBuilder and get an RV camshaft. It's not sexy, it's not going to let you kill big block Chevies, but it'll do a little better and won't hurt you. It's very hard to beat a stock camshaft on a stock engine.

Read up on camshafts, how they work, what they do, what other things are necessary. Then you will be an informed customer and better able to select the appropriate camshaft for your application and modifications.

 

Sounds good. Maybe I'll stay away from that one for a while. I think ignition and headers are more up my alley anyway. Thanks for the advice