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Hoodayhoo! Did I EVER have a fucking time waiting to get these in. Basically, there's this tool that Saturn only sells to their dealerships, and WILL NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, sell to customers. It allows one to swap cams easily and quickly, without having to remove the timing chain cover, which would add somewhere between two and six hours to the job. So, first I tried getting Saturn to sell me one. Didn't work. Then, I tried to find a generic replacement. Didn't work. Then, the company who sold me the cams said they were designing a tool to help out with the job, but that apparently never came to fruition, as they didn't answer my emails. Oh well. Finally, Sam from STC-FL said he knew how to change them without any special tools and was willing to lend a hand. He's got a nice first gen turbo SC2, so I trusted his skills, and he came through. Anyhoo, here's how it goes. First, get the cam cover off as described on the Intake Manifold page. Then, using an 8mm wrench, loosen the cam bearing screws. There are eight per cam, and they are located in 4 sets of two, on top of the cam bearings. They're stuck on there pretty fucking good, and they may release a bit of boiling oil when they break loose, but don't worry about it. Don't take any completely out yet.
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Now, before you remove the cam bearing bolts, you need to brace the cam sprockets so they don't fall down when you remove the cam. To brace the cam sprocket, we used a section of 3/4" wooden dowel rod and a smallish wrench. First, stick the wrench into one of the holes in the cam sprocket. Then, using a 21mm open ended wrench, grab the flat portion of the cam, in the middle, and turn the cam until the wrench or dowel is wedged hard against some other part of the engine. Then, take the dowel and put it through a hole where it will wedge securely into a spot where it's braced by something else in the engine bay. You might have to use a small hammer to bang it into place. When you're done, it should look something like this. Once it's well supported, use a 15mm ratchet to unscrew the main cam bolt that goes through the sprocket into the end of the cam. You may have to hold the cam in place using the 21mm wrench again. Finally, remove the cam bearing bolts and pull straight up to remove the cam bearings. Also, unscrew and remove the chain guide located directly in front of the sprockets.
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When everything retaining the cam is removed, lift up the end furthest from the sprocket and pull up and away from the sprocket and the cam should slide right out of place. Make sure to lift it up and not let it drag around the head...duh. Once the original cam is removed, you can prep the new cam for insertion. Make sure you are putting the right cam in the right spot. Exhaust cams are imprinted with "EX" and intake cams are imprinted with "IN". First, take very, very fine grain sandpaper (600 grit or so) and run it around all the cam lobes and in between them to clean off any minor casting or grinding faults. Then, spray the entire cam with COPIOUS amounts of brake cleaner. It will clean off any oil and metal flakes and shit. Set it on newspaper or something and let it dry. Brake cleaner is very volatile and will evaporate readily. Once the cam is dry again, you need to grease it up using some kind of grease or lubricant made SPECIFICALLY for this kind of work. Look for stuff like cam lube or what we used, called "Motor Honey". Put it on fucking everything. Most damage done to cam and/or lifters is done in the first five minutes after new cams are installed, due to a lack of lubrication. Grease the cam lobes, the bearing surfaces, and anything else. To reinstall the cam, slide it back in, just the reverse of how you took it out, making sure that the knob in the end of the cam is aligned with the hole in the cam sprocket. It might take a nudge with a hammer on the end of the cam to get it back into place. Then, just reinstall the main end bolt and the cam bearings and their bolts, and go on to the other cam.
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When both cams have been switched out, it's time to clean up the gasket surfaces. When I removed the cam cover to get the intake manifold off, it leaked after I put it back on in one spot. To prevent leakage, make sure to go get an OEM replacement cam cover gasket and clean all the surfaces. To clean the head surface, spray brake cleaner around the edge of the head, as shown in the picture to the right. In addition, spray it on the surface where the cam cover gasket seals around the spark plug holes. Then, pry out the old gasket from the bottom of the cam cover and spray the contact surface with brake cleaner, too. When the cam cover is dry, install the new gasket by lining it up with the ditch that runs around the outside of the bottom of the cam cover and press it in evenly. It's pretty self-explanitory when you see it. By the way, now is a good time to make sure everything in the head is still well greased and ready to go. If it's not, regrease it all before starting the next step due to the use of the silicone sealant.
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Lastly, before replacing the cam cover, you have to line the gasket surface on the head with silicone sealant to fill any gaps that might be left by the rubber gasket. Use only the sealant type that is made specifically for use with cam cover gaskets. The kind we used was grey. To get an even seal and good adherance, take some small grit sandpaper and slightly rough up all the aluminum gasket surfaces on the head before applying a thin coat of grey sealant with your finger. Then, just set the cam cover down and screw it back down. Make sure you reattach any tubes and valves that you removed to get the cam cover off. Before restarting the car, pull the PCM fuses in the engine bay fuse box or disconnect the negative battery cable for about 30 minutes to reset the PCM. Now, just crank it up and be ready to give it gas so it doesn't die. When I started mine the first time (and still now, a week after, but to a lesser degree), it tried to die on me. To condition it a bit, I kept the RPMs up at about 3000 for about 10 seconds and it was better after that. It will probably be a bit rough on the idle and it'll most likely be running rich as all hell, but that's what the S-AFC is for. Yayer. Have fun kiddies.
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