BHMustangGT

I was told that by installing aftermarket cams that it will reduce the life of the engine. Is this true? My stang is a daily driver, would I be ok by installing aftermarket cams?

Thanks

99lolagt

Depends on the cam. If you go with something mild you should be fine. Bigger cams your gonna need stronger springs and such. I would still recomend better/new valve springs for stage ones.

BHMustangGT

So if I installed new valve springs with the cams my car should be fine for daily driving? What else is needed or is recommended?

incubus1275

crower cam's website says that springs are not necessary for stage 1 but are recommended for stange 2. As long as the job is done correctly, it should not harm the motor, obviously if something goes wrong for instance you did not put the timing chain back on correctly, you will push all the valves into the pistons and blow the motor because 4.6's are interference engines.

2000GT4.6

IMO if you have more than say 30K on the clock you should do the valvespring replacement as well. Valvesprings are one of the first things to get weak, and replacing them when increasing cam size is a good idea.

Drivability will take a small hit, but I would not be afraid to daily drive a cam only bolton car (cams + boltons). It should still get decent milage (I was getting like 20 MPG highway) and so long as you do a stage 1 or stage 2 cam they arn't that wild.

avlon06

i can't remember where i read it, but in some mag. cams were not all that benifital.. i find this hard to belive with all the after market cams and buyiers out there.

SVTBill

cams without head work are pointless

cams without any type of f/i are pointless

otherwise they're great

(after market cams)

ben790450

they arent pointless they just dont do that much. Stage 1 cams are meant for stock heads. They dont do much at all. Probably 10 to 15 rwhp at most. Stage 2 cams with ported heads though will really benifit you even on an N/A car. Nothing is as good as when your blown. When you're f/i you just move so much more air and fuel that little things little throttle bodies and exhaust and heads and cams etc make a bigger difference. . .

SVTBill

did you read the first part of my post?

2000GT4.6

They can be expensive when you don't install them yourself, but if you can do it yourself and do the cams/springs for around 750 bucks its not that bad from a cost/performance point of view.

I only picked up about 15-20 WHP peak to peak, but I definatly moved the powerband higher. The car was still pulling hard all the way to redline instead of peaking at 5200~ RPM. Before the cams, I would have a large falloff of power after that, with the cams I picked up 30 WHP at 6000 RPM!

They are worth it, and I can attribute a few races that the extra 500-800 RPM charge let me win, but its not THAT big of a difference. IF I had a better tune I think I could have picked up more like 20-25 WHP peak and not lost torque down low.

The only time cams really arnt worth it is if you pay for the install AND you already need a tune (say you have full boltons and want a tune). For only700 bucks you can pick up a nice chunk of power and make the powerband better for drag racing.