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Turbo cam installation fubar

Drunk_Babies

Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2020
Location
Spokane WA
1988 LH2.2 B230F+T. Originally had T cam in, trying to get this car to run with the IPD turbo cam.

Ran smooth as butter with the T cam, standard timing with the crank keyway lined up with the rib, cam gear mark lined up, and intermediate gear lined up.

With that same setup, only changing to the IPD turbo cam it barely runs- very rough, not able to rev up past ~3k. Only measured 75# of compression on cylinder 1.

One thing I never changed was my shims- and I noticed while removing the T cam that I had zero tolerance on all of my valves. Originally had 4.05m shims, swapped to 3.3m. Now the cylinder two and three valves have nearly .030" of clearance (too much, I know) but cylinders one and four are still at zero- I can't get my smallest gauge in there. Do I just swap the 4.05mm shims back in and run it? Seems very strange to have such a wide variation between valves, and I can't even get a smaller shim than 3.3mm.

I did try offsetting the cam gear 1-2 teeth so the crank pulley mark is at -10 before TDC and it brought cylinder 1 up to 125#. I'm not entirely sure what this means but it did run better with this setup, but still stumbles past 3k rpm.

I've also verified the distributor's rotor is lined up with the #1 plug at TDC, and rotated to test throughout the entire range of ignition timing adjustment. Fully advanced seems to run best.
 
Yeah but they fail to mention that anywhere. :roll:

Because it's not, unless maybe you have several millimeters shaved off your head. It doesn't have any more bump than a stock K cam. OP sounds like your timing is off, most likely on the auxiliary shift gear. The distributor rotor doesn't point directly at #1 post, there's a small notch in the edge of the distributor
just past#1 that's the alignment mark.
 
Op, did you remove the rubber valve hushers before installing the IPD cam? That may be why you measured zero lash.
If so, remove the hushers and shim the cam.

The IPD turbo cam does make an engine interference (ever so slightly so) if the timing belt breaks and a valve is stuck at max lift. Usually the valve will leave a little dent in the carbon on the piston. But who cares? Fun cams make engines interference.
 
I found it easy to mess up the alignment on the auxiliary shaft gear when reinstalling a belt in situ. Are you getting spark to all cylinders and are all injectors firing? Has the harmonic balancer slipped at all? The outer part with the timing mark can slip relative to the inner part when the rubber gets old and inevitably cracks.
 
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Sold a turbo 740 to a long time customer that I put a iPd turbo cam in. He does no maintenance and the belt broke=bent some valves. Sold him another car.$$
 
Yeah I ****ed up, I found old hushers stuck to the underside of the buckets... Went back to the 4.05mm shims and readjusted timing. Runs like a champ!
 
OP, when all else fails, use the full shim kit from IPD. Pay the freight both ways, but get the exact shims you need to meet OE specs. Yes of course, NO hushers when you are measuring and shimming. From memory on my IPD cam, non of my factory egg cartons full of shims would provide the right clearances with the IPD Turbo cam - you couldn't get there from here, using factory shims (at least, my collection which is probably consolidated from 8 or more redblock engines). Good luck! It will run just fine when properly shimmed and timed.
 
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