Thread: Cam Cap Bolt Tightening

Hey everyone. I'm having an issue with tightening my intake cam. I try to follow the procedure in the FSM but I encounter some heavy resistance after following the steps in the book. I'm thinking I must not be doing it right. I need some insight on successful cam installs.

I tried following the numbering in the book for the intake cam but just hand tightening as much as possible. A quarter turn at a time going through numbers 1-10.

How are you guys tightening the cam cap bolts before following the procedure in the FSM?

I'm sure my problem is that my cam caps are just not balanced enough before I start using the torque wrench.

I just had to do this a few weeks ago when I put my head back on. There are 3 steps for tightening the cam caps. If you have the 1991 FSM look on EM-94 for tightening sequence. Your first step is to tighten only 8 specific bolts. It's a PITA process, but it worked for me. I made sure my cams were at 10 and 12 O clock, then started a few threads on all the bolts I could. Just do this, and you should be fine.

I think the resistence your encountering may be one of the cam lobes pointing down pushing against the rocker arm and its opening a valve. Basically your pushing against the valve spring which is normal for a cam install. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Sr20? it was a pretty heavy resistance. I think where I went wrong was to tighten 9-10 first and then 1-8 on step 1 of the FSM procedure.

Today I loosened the bolts again but instead tightened 1-10 slowly with a 1/4 turn increment for each bolt. It took forever but it was a much better method for keeping the caps balanced. Once all the caps were seated I loosened the bolts using the dissassembly numbering. I loosened a quarter turn at a time for four repititions. I then tightened a quarter turn at a time 1-10 using my torque wrench set to its lowest setting. Eventually all my bolts had been torqued to the step 1 specification using the 1-10 tightening sequence.

Thanks for the input guys. This was the first time I messed with installing a new cam. Wasn't as perfect as I hoped but it was a good learning experience for next time.

I go around in order of FSM and tighten by hand tight. When I start torquing, I use a torque wrench.