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OverDose · 11-11-2003, 21:31

gidday,

in an xf what cam would you recommend?

are they hard to install? if not how much would i be looking at to get one installed?

cheers,

EDFUTURA · 11-23-2003, 02:56

I fitted a Heatseeker HS20 cam to my XF and it went somewhat better than the std ED - ie. was pretty tough off the line and effortlessly reached 150 - 160kph (that's as far as I ever took it because at that point I hadn't got the suspension set up to cope with those speeds). It wasn't until I got an XR6 cam into my ED that it started to feel similar in outright power terms to the XF with that HS20 cam (having the Webber carby properly sorted was a major thing too).

The changeover took me a full day and involved taking off the rocker cover (and rockers etc. of course), removing the radiator, removing the front bumper, removing the front upper cross piece and then removing the harmonic ballancer and timing cover.

I also replaced the lifters for which I bought a good quality lifter puller - which was a wise choice as pretty much all of them took a fair bit of fiddling to get out.

The only thing that pissed me off royally was that altho I tried really hard to get the timing cover aligned properly - as in shaft seal centered as well as possible (I replaced the shaft seal in the timing cover with a new one) - the damned thing then leaked oil consistently from that front seal - only a few drops on the driveway per night but it was still a pisser as she'd been dry as a bone until then.

In short - a competent mechanic should be able to do the changeover in a day - but definitely budget for a full day's work to do it.

As far as tracking down cams it's probably worth checking Crow Cams website (or just call them) or try finding a Heatseeker site. Also try calling Wade Cams.

clevo400 · 12-26-2003, 09:07

I used a precision RV15 around $120.
Speed Pro lifters $60.
Rollmaster timing chain $75.
The Weber goes as hard as a 350 Holley.

Good engine combo for your XF tested in a XE and a TE.

fordmuscle_83 · 12-26-2003, 13:48

EDFUTURA, what sort of cam specs was yours in the xf and how much did it cost all up? Was the weber re-jetted and modded any other way?

Pete

DansEdgli · 12-26-2003, 14:10

My mechanic charged me $220 to swap the heads and cam over. I had bought all the extra parts seperately though like gaskets and stuff.
Its not that hard to change but you do need a lot of time to do it as the radiator and front bumper need to be removed to get to it. You also need the correct tools, Harmonic balancer remover as that is a biatch to get off.

On the head i sent you there are some little washer looking things on some of the rocker arm pedestals. If you want to use stock rockers these need to go under them to prevent the valves opening too far due to the high lift of my cam, I will send you the rest of them when i mail the cam your way.

Hope that helps
Dan

not ford · 12-26-2003, 16:11

Doing an incar cam swap on a OHV motor is a pain due to trying to get the correct sealing of the timing cover. You are supposed to replace the sump gasket and put it on last after the t/cover. BUT thats next to impossible with the motor in the car.

Also the lifter remover is required due to a oil varnish in the lifter bore which is especially exasperated by irregular oil changes and the Ford I6 not having a side cover plate.

EDFUTURA · 01-05-2004, 01:40

fordmuscle_83 - I thought I'd kept the cam spec card but haven't been able to find it. The cam was a Heatseeker HS20 and from memory it had something like 270 duration and 70/20 timing. That's all I can remember and even then I'm not sure how accurate those figures are.

As far as the carby goes, there was a "hot idle" jet or something like that (all very hazy memory now) which I figured was possibly causing very noticeable sogginess on hot days so I disabled that (from memory involved simply blocking a vac hose that operated it). Then I messed with the float level to get it accelerating crisply and without flat spots - ie. I set it strictly to the book specs then very slightly tweaked it - one way made things noticeably worse but the other way made it improve heaps. Unfortunately I can't recall which way made the improvement.

Hope that's some help.

fordmuscle_83 · 01-05-2004, 02:40

The guys at crow recommended 14776 with weber and stock gearing. Bigger cams need lower gears (so they said).

EDFUTURA · 01-06-2004, 01:45

Yep - what they're saying is pretty much right - ie. the bigger the cam, generally the higher in rev range it delivers power, so to benefit properly you need to lower the gearing. That HS20 cam wasn't really all that wild but even it didn't feel much different to stock off the line, but from about 2500rpm up it felt stronger - from 3000 up it felt MUCH better than std.