I emailed Crower cams asking if they made a cam for the 3vze and
They responded,

"Unfortunately we do not have a cam core available. We can however
regrind
your stock cam for $172 and 1 week lead time. If you are interested
just
send them in to my attention along with a detailed note of any and all
modifications you have done to your motor along with your contact info.
Thank you for your interest in crower."

I have noticed Crower Cams on some YOTATECH truck bios and I have heard that they supply the cams for the DOA $1250 33HP heads.

What does anyone know about this product.
They are $200.00 less than the Weasy cams and that is their Major product, so they are experienced cam builders.
Please comment on experiences with either cams

Thank you
Skiraider

 

I have ported and polished heads, intake and the Crower cams along with headers, 2.5"cat&exhaust and a whole bunch of other stuff.

It runs good for a 3VZE and has a much wider powerband than stock.

However, in my opinion the money was not well spent. I'm kicking myself for not just doing the 3.4 swap, the stock 3.4 would run circles around it and a Supercharged 3.4 would make mine look like it's standing still.

Don't waste your money trying to get performance from the 3VZE, do the swap.

And whatever you do, stay away from that crook at DOA, he'll cheat you blind.

 

Have you looked at WebCams They do custom regrinds

 

Thanx Monstermax
Did you ship your cams to Crower for a regrind? I heard some bad things about Crower since my question.
A 3.4 swap is just too big a job for me to attempt. I have had the downey Headers and catback for a couple of years now and that helped wake up the engine. I have already collected some parts, ported intake, bored throttle body and oversize valves and the cam seems to be the last part to open things up and still be reliable. Yes I have heard stories adout DOA and I am staying clear.
I am on a waiting list for a group buy for the weasy cams and I heard from Crower and they are $200.00 less and can do it right away.
I am looking at the options on my 3.0 Slow
Skiraider

 

Yes, mine are a regrind.

 

If you put a pile of $$ into pumping up a 3.slow, you'll have a motor that makes 190-200hp. The same $$ spent on a 3.4 swap gives you 190hp stock, with an easy 35hp or more on tap by bolting up a supercharger. The 3.4 is a way better motor than the 3.0. More tunable, more HP, more aftermarket parts, etc.

The 3.4 swap isn't that bad at all. If you get a good clean motor and buy the ORS kits, you will be way ahead. I am doing a 3.4 swap. It isn't that hard.

How many people need to tell you to do a 3.4 swap instead of trying to pump up a 3.slow? Listen to the good advice. That's what you're here for, isn't it?

 

maybe he just wants to be different!

 

I don't want to start a new tread or search. but is the 3.0 & the 3.4 the same block?

 

They are "similar" but the not the same.

 

I am not being different, just upgrading what I have got.
I put a rebuilt 3.0 in 3 years ago and put downey headers and a 2 1/2" cat back, cold air intake, new muffler, catalitic converter, cleaned injecters and all new O2 and Knock sensors at the time of the rebuild.
Big difference, more go and better gas milage.
Now, I have bought a throttle body from ebay and an intake manifold from a minitruck yard and had the boring and porting done. I also bought the oversized valves, new headbolts and head gasket kit, so the cams are next logical step. I may or may not do the valve job with the oversized valves and reground cams now, but I am collecting the parts and will do it eventually.
It is my work truck and everyday driver and I have put 100,000 miles on in 5 years.
My goal is to be able to cruise all day at 70mph and get 20 mpg Highway. That's close to what I have now. I also Snow ski 30+ days a season so it has to be able to go uphill and the headers helped a lot already.
Skiraider

 

I would love for peopel to put out close up pitures of crowers cams Just so you can all see the way they grind the cams vs my cam grinder....colt cams has been doing custom cam grinds for over 25 years...so i would call them experienced as well

Ask if they radius cut the lobes to prevent wear on the cam lobe as well as the lifter buckets...ask them if they put the cams in the perculator (sp?) to coat/clean them and add to the strength of the cam.

THere are small things that smaller shops do to make the cam better off for you. The bigger guys just want money they can give a rats ass about quality.

We also include proper spacers that go under the shims so you do not need to purchase a whole set of shims from toyota (10 bucks a pop!) another plus...but again thats up to you in the end

EDIT:

Is that 177 per cam? he said CAM so i wonder if you are looking at 354 for a set...NOT including shipping

 

side note... adding a SC to a 3.4L will net you around 75hp on its own. You can go up from there with more bolt-ons.

 

Crower's cams are 177 a set for the regrinds and a great deal. I installed them on my extended cab and the motor is perfect now. I didn't take pictures before installing them, but the finish was excellent, as you would assume from a company that's been working on cams as long as crower has.

Lead time on the regrind was a week. Sent them in on Friday and received them in a new box the 7 days later. Installed/shimmed them myself and based on my experience, I would recommend them to anyone.

I know this won't benefit the original buyer, but this info will be helpful for anyone searching...

 

A set of regrinds? Wow pretty good, i might get a set to compare the grind quality to ours. Crower isnt as good as you think They dont give out prices like that for nothing

 

I can stand by Johnnys cams, great quality. My truck has been running great since I got them.

 

While I can't comment on Weasy's cams directly- I have postive experiences with Colt AND Crower (regrinds). Both are quality pieces- but what Weasy brings to the table is probably a better package deal due to the shims, etc. Regrinding a cam reduces it's base circle, necessitating bigger shims, and sometimes a 2nd heat-treat. Same cam grinders believe that their grinds don't go deep enough to warrant a re-treat, but that's based on what they believe your heat-treat depth is, not what it actually is.

That said, I DFL (dry film lube) my cam lobes on regrinds. Another good option is REM or Mikronite finishing, if you can afford it.

Sorry- I got a bit off-topic there, but I think Weasy is right- at 177, all you'll be getting is the regrind service. What profile did they offer up?

 

The 3.4 is way better engine, that is the next project that I am awaiting and have stop all my dream of o/s valve, etc, and I have just done the cheap and simple moded to this truck that have shown a significant change already. I bet all that work you have done would of have conquer the 3.4 swap already, I mean with ors kit, if budget are a problem then save yourself from upgrading the 3.0 at this time, you be saving up the cost to swap the 3.4 that will top the 3.0 in a way you have think the 3.0 can do. The 3.0 is a gas hogging engine, been there and done that... To save gas you also want to think about upgrading the tranny which may need the most out of it, like tweaking the gear ratio, etc, I do not know much but like in the game grand tismo we tweak the gear ratio to lower the rpm so I do not know if the R150 tranny would be tweakable though. just my 0.02 cents...

 

Don’t disagree with you there. I love the 3.4 and it will one day be bolted to my R150. I wouldn’t even drive my 3.0 with an automatic. I only have a couple hundred into my motor since I did all the work myself. I port-matched the manifolds, added the Crower cams (177)(you NEED new shims for these), and added a magnaflow muffler (40 on ebay). That combined with new parts from partsdinosaur (around 250) and a 3 angle valve job (deal from friend at shop), I have a new motor and only 2 weekends into it. No smog refs or anything like that to deal with = bliss for me right now. The truck drives as if brand new, has a better powerband, and I get around 19 mpg. Once again….no complaints.

Everyone should already be running the proper gears for their tire sizes…

Say what you want, but every one of our prerunners run them. I rev the piss out of my 3.0 every time I’m offroad, and I’m still smiling since my install…

 

By the way, I'm not trying to get into a pissing match with anyone....especially since I have no financial stake in this anyways. I'm sure Weasy's cams kick ass, and if they come with shims that would be interesting. When I installed the Crowers though, I needed a WIDE variety of shims in order to properly set them. I used spacers from another 3vze to get them back close to spec, and then used Toyota shims to get it right into spec. There was a wide variation in the numbers, and without the right shims it would have been way out of specifications, causing premature failure of the cams.

Weasy - PM sent.

 

does anyone know where i could get bigger cams for my 3vze. i want to race it offroad and i was thinking of using DOA. What do you guys think?