Week 29: July 22nd 2001:

Driving the car in the city and using it to drive back and forth from work was just not going to work with the cam that was installed in the engine.  After going through all the literature that came with the motor as well as a few phone calls with Ted, we determined that the cam installed was an Isky 270 performance cam.  It’s just too lopey for this 3.5l motor.  Ted also thought that the engine had a 264 cam installed so we were both kind of perplexed on the issue.  The only solution was to replace the cam with something that would make city driving a lot more manageable which would perhaps remove some top end power but make it more useful for daily driving.  I went through all the specs for the Isky cams and decided to use an Isky 256 Performance Cam.  The website (for Isky cams) specifies that this cam gives the best fuel economy & can be used with existing computer management / fuel injection computers.  A phone call with Woody also confirmed this so I struck a deal with Ted and got an Isky 256 drop shipped to me.  Although I was to busy with actually changing out the cam to take a bunch of photos, I’ve included a couple here which show the timing chain and the top of the motor w/ the intake off.  The difference in performance between what the engine was and what it is now is night and day.  The idle is exceptionally smooth, the torque that the car now delivers is unbelievable and any concerns that I had about loosing top end acceleration and performance have gone through the window.  This car just laughs at me.  Vroom Vroom!