Thread: cam question

so i recently took my car to school with me and did a compression test to see if it was worth putting a turbo on it or not, numbers came out good but went ahead and did a cylinder leak test and found out that it DOES have a blown head gasket, dont know how i was getting good compression with a blown gasket between cylinders, but while i had the valve cover off i learned that our engines have hydraulic lash adjusters, took a peek at the cams and noticed that they are pretty worn, my question is if i put new cams in will the lash adjusters adjust themselves back to normal or will i still have to shim them, i really really dont want to have to shim. also if i buy bigger cams will i have to buy new valves to compensate for the cams pushing the valves down more and open longer, or will stock valves be fine, also will i need to upgrade the valve springs

Yes you can have good compression with a bad headgasket. Im gonna assume that it was pushing air into the cooling system during the test correct? As there is a coolant passage between the cylinders. Only way it would go into the adjacent cylinder would be if the top portion of the gasket was blown between the head and gasket but ive yet to see that on our motors.

You dont need to reshim with new cams and you dont need new valves. The hla's will take up any slack. If your rocker arms are worn as well which i will assume they are if the cam lobes are worn i recommend getting a good set of rocker arms as well.

Stock valves will be perfectly fine. No need to touch them.