cam upgrade ?'s

[darkskittle05]

story: lately cyl #4 right exhust valve has ben making an ungodly tapping noise... so off to the dealership for warnt. work so i thought, de-mod most of the boost enhance of the car . a few hours later got a call stating that they also noticed the noise and that it was too early to diagn. the problem to a pin-point a soultion... ( in the terms expland to me basiclly it must damage the head for them to pull the valve cover to inspect it.) With that in mind being a machanic myself i took the liberty of ordering a OEM valve cover gasket and inspecting it my self... (doing so today i found the same valve & cyl.as noted.) found that the down side of the cam (the open side) had a very noticable indentation that was worn on it causing the my very same problem. a few other unselected lobes on the cam had ware but was very slight. after coming to the conclusion that replacement of the cams is required was wonding what lift & duration would suit my mods and still daily drive it if i wanted

[blackbird]

Cam selection can be very tricky. Even going off specs it's hard to find something "right" for different applications. If you did decide to go the aftermarket route there's a few popular cams but also factor in the cost of adjustable cam gear/sprockets and dyno tuning time required to get everything dialed in. Otherwise you could end up hurting performance or doing something that could damage the engine (such as altering valve timing in a way that increases EGT's).

By your screen name I'm guessing you have '05 car. Some of the earlier cars had a TSB (technical service bulletin) for valvetrain noise/tapping due to the cam caps not being properly chamfered on the edges. The lobes shouldn't normally have any indentations or chunks missing. Can you post a picture?

Before just dropping in new camshafts you might want to check for other damaged or broken components to rule out anything that could have caused the cam damage in the first place (lifter, roller rocker arm, etc.). If it's under warranty it might be best to let a different dealer take a look at it if the first one you took it to didn't want to do anything.

[darkskittle05]

YEAH ALL COMPONENT CHECH OUT FINE NO FLAT SPOTS OR DAMAGE TO THE ROLLER ROCKERS,LIFTERS,OR EVEN A WEAK SPRING... BUT MOST WEAR ON THE CAMS WERE MOST EVIDENT TO THE EXHAUST CAM NEAR CYL #4 , I HAVE QUITE A FEW SRT FRIENDS DOWN HERE AND AT LEAST 3 ARE HAVING SIMILER PROBLEMS BUT IN DIFFENT CYL"S ... I PULLED THE RECALL INFO FOR THE VAVLE TRAIN NOSIE (tsb) OFF MITCHELL-ON-DEMAND WHEN THE CAR WAS TAKEN IT BE INSPECTED , AND GAVE IT TO THE SERVICE WRITER WITCH WAS PASSED TO THE TECH AND GAVE ME THE EXCUSE IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MY CURRENT PROBLEM ... THERE IS REALLY ONLY 1 DEALER CURRENTLY IN THE AREA SO THAT KINDA LIMITED MY OPIONS... SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO RE POST... I DO HAVE A FEW PICTURES OF THE CAMS BEENING OUT AND A SHOT OF THE SPINGS , LIFTERS, AND ROLLERS ALONG WITH OTHER COMPONETS... WILL POST

[darkskittle05]

THIS WHAT CAMS I DID DECIDE TO GO WITH...

CHR-246-2SR-10 193-0014 9.25/8.75mm
(.364”) (.345”) 204/196° 246/238° 110° $429.99 pair
This cam profile features our unique “Split Duration” lobe profile design (exhaust duration is less than intake duration). “Spools” turbo faster for quicker boost and response. Reduces turbo “lag-time”. Strong upper mid-range and top-end HP when turbo boost is applied. For Max HP and RPM use intercooler and low restriction intake and exhaust systems. RPM range: 1,500 - 6,800

ALSO SPRINGS AND RETANERS FROM CRANE...
Crane Cams’ Racing Valve Spring and Titanium Retainer Kits
Crane Cams’ new Racing Valve Spring and Titanium Retainer Kits deliver the added valve spring pressure, compressed travel and reliability necessary to take advantage of the horsepower, torque and RPM capabilities engineered into the new line of performance and racing Crane Cams offered for Chrysler four cylinder engines!

[blackbird]

The TSB for the noise is probably unrelated to what you're experiencing. It deals with improperly machined cam caps that don't have a correct chamfer and was only for one of the year SRT-4's (early '05s if I remember correctly). Do you have any good close-up pictures of the damage to the cam lobe? It could be a manufacturing problem or possibly an oiling problem. Or maybe it's unrelated. I'd still maybe try taking it to another dealer and see if they can diagnose it better than the other one. It would suck to buy new cams and find out the oiling passage in the head is clogged or something and have it kill your new cams.

[darkskittle05]

ive already installed the new cams springs and retaners as listed above also the head was salt&pepperd 4 any cracks and was pressure tested along witha 3 angle vavle job w/new vavle guidesby a trusted local machine shop, no oiling problem found and cam caps were all flat at the base and were re-insalled at book spec torgue as of now the problem been corrected no unwanted valve train noise or tapping ... new cams have about 1500-2000 miles on them and runs very strong

[blackbird]

Sounds good and hopefully you don't have any more problems. Did you end up sticking with the stock valves or did those get upgraded as well? Since you had the head off that should have caught anything especially if they flushed it out and checked it over good. How do you like the cams? If you get a dyno with them it would be nice if you could post it up to see what the powerband looks like. :thumb:

[darkskittle05]

yeah i suck with the stock valves , they were in really good shape
and yeah i put up a dyno sheet when i go next week, i also just recently bought a AFCII neo and a wideband gauge so ; the cams are great has a mild loop to them sound amazing and preform better... thanks blackbird

[blackbird]

Glad you're liking them. If you had a dyno sheet from before the cams and then after it would be really interesting to see the shifts or changes in the powerband. The stock valves are pretty good and unless you port the head to help flow/velocity there isn't much point in going with the over-sized aftermarket valves.

Also a recommendation on your other purchases, install the wideband first and if you have the boost on the car turned up put it back down to stock levels and drive around like that for a while. That way you'll get a little better understanding of what the stock A/F ratio's look like. That will give you a little better reference to go off of when you install the piggyback and start modifying the car more. Also I'm not sure if you've looked into it them yet but one of the scan gauges that can show OBD-II information along with knock retard (in degrees) makes a great choice to go along with a wideband. An EGT gauge is also nice (especially if you're on the stock turbo and more so if you've altered cam timing), but with just a wideband and scan gauge you should be able to extract a decent amount of power and still remain pretty safe.

[darkskittle05]

yeah iv got a before dyno sheet around here som-were if i find it ill post both
what a good place to add the wbo2 sender in the exhaust i v seen in done in many ways ... keep in mine i have stock monifold and o2 housing up top

[blackbird]

Are you still on a stock downpipe and cat? If you're running a "Stage" computer you can remove the downstream O2 sensor and place the wideband sensor there but it won't react as fast and you'd need to leave the stock sensor plugged in and tied up to the body somewhere (the Stage computers don't take readings from it but will throw a code if it gets unplugged).

The best bet is to have another bung welded onto the downpipe. I usually go off Innovate Motorsport's recommendation for most of the Bosch sensor based systems. They call for a minimum of 18" of exhaust path from the turbine discharge (which is way up inside the manifold) and to install the sensor at something between a 10 and 2 o'clock position. You don't want to install it upside down because when you shut the car off condensation/moisture will form in the exhaust and it can drain down and collect in the sensor head and cause damage or kill it prematurely. If you're running a cat and/or stock downpipe I'd try to have the bung for the sensor installed within a couple inches of the cat inlet. To get an accurate reading the wideband controller keeps the wideband sensor head at a constant temperature with a built in heating element. It can heat the sensor up but can't cool it down if it gets too hot so if you had to install it closer to the turbo you can make an external heat sink or use something similar to a spark plug anti-fouler to cool it off.

If you want some other ideas on placement and other wideband info (even if you have a different model) the Innovate forums have a ton of good information available.

http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/forums/index.php

[darkskittle05]

no i got a r&r performance 3"" down pipe and a full 3 '' all the way back single side but iv hear of ppl putting them i n the UPPER O2 HOUSING.
NO IM STILL STAGE 0 ,W/THE 2ND O2 MOD

[blackbird]

Many wideband kits have the ability to be used in place of a factory narrowband sensor. You take the stock sensor out and install the wideband sensor in the same place and then the wideband controller gets wired into the stock O2 sensor wiring harness and outputs a "simulated" narrowband reading that the car's computer needs to operate. But on the SRT-4 you do not want to place a wideband O2 sensor into the stock elbow/O2 housing. It's too close to the turbo and as mentioned, the heat will cause the readings to be off and kill the sensor a lot sooner. Some wideband kits using an NTK sensor can withstand heat a little better but that's still too close. If your downpipe does not have a cat then anywhere is fine but the further down the better (but as long as it's over 18" or so you should be fine).

[darkskittle05]

thank u blackbird ur my hero lol

[th3_n00b_pwn3r]

I sometimes hear a distinct "tapping" noise as well. Bought my car in June which means it was most likely an earlier 05 build. I havent paid too much attention to the noise, though. Most likely same problem?

[darkskittle05]

could be ... what i did was use a machanics thesascope one with a needle on the end and went around the cover untill i could hear the noticable tapping noise.. a few 05 srts in the area are expering the same problem so it sounds but are all coming from differnt valves, i wound ask the dealer if ur un sure how to diag the noise ... i hope u have better luck then i did: cuz i did most of the work myself, in my shop except the machine work( 3angle valve job & spring and retainers) and it cost me about 1,200 bucks with upgraded cams and springs and retainers

[darkskittle05]

but litterally the cam lobe had a discintive wear mark , in my opinion by cheap metal in witch the cams were made

[blackbird]

It is a Neon. :lol: That can also be a good thing in that parts are relatively cheap and easy to get. If you ever wanted to pick up a replacement stock cam they are the same in all '02+ 2.4L's (naturally aspirated and turbo).