I gotta say that as much as I'm a DIY kinda guy, the idea of doing a cam swap makes me want a "pro" to do it. This is beyond my league as an amateur wrench.

Who can do a cam install? Any local Cummins shop? Dodge dealer?

Performance shops?

Who would YOU have do it?

 

Diesel performance shop that has done them before.

Paul

 

I would either go to a performance place or a dodge dealer. The only reason why I would go to a dodge dealer is because I know a guy there that would take my truck to his shop and work on it there for a third of the cost of any where else including the dealership. That and he's built several pulling trucks.

 

I don't think there would be any special procedures when doing a Helix II as opposed to another factory cam...

I would just take it to a local shop and talk to the owner, some of the most run-down looking places around here have owners that know there stuff better than you would ever imagine!

 

Thats true best machanic in my area use to be at the worst looking shop around. That was until the machanic left and then it was the owner and new machanic who frogot to put oil in after a oil change ooops.

Talk to the guys first...they usally have coffee and love to BS.

 

You gonna do a big single instead of the "perfect twins?"

 

All options are on the table...

A huge single isn't one of them..

 

If at all possible have a friend do it or someone do it you could watch just kind of a real live teaching aide and to see that nothing is cobbed together!
Brandon

 

Thats the truth. My parents live in Cleveland, Tx and I used to run around in your area years back. There are a couple of "little shop" big horsepower guys running around those parts with some really nice trucks.

Talk to the guy, you'll know if you want him wrenching on your truck.

 

Yup thats exactly it "Bowling's Garage" in magnolia is a really good shop, kind of hard to get your truck in there because its always busy. The owner Gaylan Bowling knows his shiz-nit, I don't know if he still has it but he built a drag truck that had like a 555ci motor with nitrous running 7's or 8's... It's been a while since I've seen it though..

You could always buy the service manual and give it a try on your own Hohn... lol

 

HOHN, I thought there were a bunch of 3rd gen trucks that made more HP on the stock cam.

Do you sacrifice a little top end with cam, but gain a ton of mid range?
I always thought you were on a tight budget and cams seem like a rich man game to me.

 

He could be asking this question out of theoretics, but I think he wants to make twins where the spoolup is minimal and have the least amount of smoke possible for 500rwhp. That is similar to my goal so a cam is nice to have...

 

Hohn,

a cam swap is not "easy" but it sure ain't tough either!!

I have done several. The last one was less than 8 hours with a bunch of BSing and we even swapped in the 12 valve lift pump, draw straw, -8 line on the suction side and -6 on the pressure side.

45 psi all the time.

Custom regulator to make it 22psi. It never, ever changes.

I would not be afraid of doing this yourself. If you have changed injectors, turbos and all the other parts, don't let a little bumpstick scare ya!

If you have any questions, drop me a line.

Why pay for something you can do for free? Not to mention the bragging rights of saying that YOU did the swap.

Dave

 

I didn't do a cam swap, but I did pull the stocker and put it in. The hardest part was making the dowels to stick in the lifters. The rest was just your usual wrenching. Theres a fair amount of disassembly involved, but nothing overly hard.

 

I did allot of research, before I decided to have mine done. If some one local had been willing to tech help me along I would have done it myself.

Comparing a $7k practically new engine to a rooky goof up, I had it done by some one with more experience.

The shop charged me 10 hours of labor. That bill hurt my wallet, but gave me piece of mind.

Jim