Cam Quote
 

I just contacted a nearby performance shop for a quote on installing roller rockers and headers and heres what he said...

"$300 for the rocker arms

$750 for the long tube headers, IF THEY DIRECTLY MATE UP TO YOUR CURRENT EXHAUST. There will be an extra charge if you have stock exhaust that needs to be cut and attached to the long tube headers.



The long tubes and rocker arms only make an additional 20-25hp. Your money would be better spent on a custom camshaft and dyno tuning. The cost is $3500 and includes: custom cam, dual valve springs, valve locks, valve retainers, new valve seals hd pushrods, spark plugs, oil change, crank bolt, cam bolt and before and after dyno runs with printouts and custom tuning on our dyno. The cam makes an additional 60 CRANKSHAFT HP. It also works with your stock torque converter. We do an average of 1 ls cam swap per week in the spring and summer. If you require active fuel management-DOD lifter replacement, add $1000 for parts and labor. Tax is extra



It takes us 3-4 days to do the cam swap and tuning. Add 2 days to pull the cylinder heads and replace the lifters if required.

Thank you."

Price for RRs and headers is labor only. But for those of you that are cammed, is 3500 plus tax a decent price for the 60hp he's claiming?

The prices sound like they're on the higher end, but they don't sound outrageous for shops around here. Labor is a killer, especially for aftermarket stuff.

IMO if you're serious about a cam, that's the way to go. LS engines in general love an aftermarket cam. I wouldn't limit you to just what they offer, there are tons of LS cam options and places thatll spec a custom one too.

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Yea I thought it was a little steep. I've been contemplating whether to cam or just go headers and rocker arms but for the power difference, cam might be the better choice.

Seems impossible to find anyone here in MN that does aftermarket installation for cam swap. :nono:

One place I contacted even recommended I sell the Monte and buy a better performance platform car! :mad: lol

IMO it's a waste of money that you will never recoup changing the cam. Yes, more horsepower can be gained, but with front wheel drive it is useless IMO.

Small Mods are fine IMO. Headers & Exhaust yes. Air Intake yes. Throttle Body Yes. Injectors yes. Dyno Tuning yes.

The main reason for the crazy cost is the labor. IIRC book time for that kind of work is like 20 hours including dropping the subframe with the engine/trans basically out of the car. For a shop charging $100/hr, that's like $2k in labor alone not including anything aftermarket (tuning, etc). Actual parts are probably <$1000 depending what all you decide to replace.

Depends what kind of power you're looking for. Rockers are really limited because they only change one characteristic of the cam - the lift multiplication. When you go to an aftermarket cam, you can play with everything, lift, duration, lsa, ramp rates / profile, etc. You can really get it dialed in for exactly what you want.

The other benefit while you're in there is that you can choose to delete all of the DOD stuff to improve the long term reliability.

I can certainly see where they're coming from, try not to take it too personal as they may be genuinely trying to look out for you. This platform isnt a good bang for the buck to go fast, mostly due to FWD traction issues and transmission issues. There's also the concern about getting into a slippery slope of mod cost vs car value.

If you're dead set on this platform, I get it. I've got more money in my monte than I care to count. There's something to be said about having something different, it's just a much harder road to go down.

The same can be said for every single mod done to a car. At least with the bolt on stuff you mention, you can remove prior to selling and maybe make 50% back, but in general mod money should always be considered flushed down the toilet. You also cant always bank on selling the mods later, the car could get stolen, burnt the ground, totalled in a wreck, etc and leave you with none of it (unless you pay to insure the mods also).

I don't totally agree here either, it's not like he's trying to build a 500+ whp setup like some wbody cars. Putting down 350-375 crank hp isn't impossible. Part of it comes down to suspension- reducing the tendency of the car to want to rotate back on launch, part of it comes down to tires. There are some pretty sticky options available nowadays, even to the point of drag radials if you really had to hook from a launch.

I guess my thing is if the OP really wants the power from doing every single little bolt on like this, why not just go straight for a cam - fix the DOD issues by removing them and get a nasty sounding exhaust note as a bonus? It might be a little cheaper to do all of these bolt ons, but they also wont make the power that a cam will.

After reading thru the replies I'm wondering , how much is a replacement engine that already has a good cam installed or a set of ported heads ? I agree with bumpin96monte most of this is money is going into labor. Not sure what book time is but guessing a engine install is between 10-14 hours and depending your skill could be done at home over a weekend. Also wondering what part of Mn your from ? I can ask around my area to see if there is any shops that do this kind of work if your interested.

Unfortunately finding a used, cam (or cam+heads) LS4 is going to be pretty tough. He would have to use an LS4 as no other LS will drop in. The LS4 is fairly uncommon to find locally anyways (compared to a 3800 or something), but luckily the LS swap crowd can't use it, so at least the prices stay fairly low. There is a decent selection on ebay, all generally $1k-2k (plus shipping), but as far as I saw they were all stock.

I also wouldn't spend extra money for ported heads. There have been as few go that route early on with pretty poor results for the money. The stock 243 heads flow pretty well and aren't particuallalry restrictive on a 5.3.
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