What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

[scot850]

Nice, clean and shiny! Great news and good way to end a year on a high note!

Neil.

[kallekula]

Finished up the valve seal R&R and NA cam swap on my '97 T5 today.


Haven't had a chance to get it out for a test drive yet, but no odd noises/etc when I fired it up and got it up to temp.

How many hp extra do you get from swapping cams?
EDIT: the cams are matched to the head. Did you do that yourself or did you have a shop do it for you?

[Chuck W]

How many hp extra do you get from swapping cams?
EDIT: the cams are matched to the head. Did you do that yourself or did you have a shop do it for you?

I think the #'s floating around are 15-20hp.

What do you mean "matched to the head"?

[kallekula]

There are no bearings in the head where the cams connect too when they rotate. There are simply a few “holes” you get when the two parts of the head are put together. Those holes are machined after measuring the diameter of the cams corresponding surfaces. Maybe negligible difference and you’ll feel if the cams bind when you rotate the engine by hand after the timing belt is on.

[abscate]

Cylinder head cover pieces are matched, I don’t think cams are. They should swap.



Look at all that assembly lube on the bearings and the important thrust bearing , don’t be this monkey mechanic…

viewtopic.php?t=96254&hilit=Resurrectio ... &start=180

[Chuck W]

The NA cam swap is a known quantity. I needed to replace seals, so I figured now was the (only) time I would do it on this engine. It's not worth it (to me) to swap the cams, just to swap cams. The extra lift from the NA cams will be nice, though.

The cam cover/head are a matched unit. The cams are not matched to the head. That would be an engineering faux pas to do something that inane on a production engine.

[bmdubya1198]

Correct, the only parts that must be matched to each other are the head and the cam cover. You can swap cams without issue.

[foggydogg]

Thank you, all. I added coolant and had more venting from the .75 bar cap. I swapped in the green 1.5 bar cap and drove the kids to their grandparents’ house about 90 minutes away with no apparent coolant loss and no more hissing.

Foggydogg, that’s an awesome tangent. Thanks for that perspective. I’m now fascinated by the idea of not being able to use coolant.

If a race car starts uncommanded coolant discharge at speed, very hot water will dissipate fairly rapidly; anti-freeze would turn the racing surface into a skating rink. The Cup series cars were running diabolical pressure caps a few years ago at superspeedways because the cars ran way hot while drafting (rumors were in the fifty pound range .) The Authorities had to step in and now there is a cap pressure rule.

Glad your issue seems to have settled. As mentioned earlier either pressure cap will do fine, you likely had a brittle gasket. I just chose the lighter cap to keep from tempting fate on my old 850's heater core and such.

[abscate]

Correct, the only parts that must be matched to each other are the head and the cam cover. You can swap cams without issue.

There is reputable lore here that even cam cover top/bottoms have been mismatched successfully, it may have been GuruJimmy who posted on this. There is a thread on where the ID match mark numbers are located here too

[kallekula]

Correct, the only parts that must be matched to each other are the head and the cam cover. You can swap cams without issue.

There is reputable lore here that even cam cover top/bottoms have been mismatched successfully, it may have been GuruJimmy who posted on this. There is a thread on where the ID match mark numbers are located here too

It makes more sense, would be too expensive to match every surface according to the cams. I stand corrected.