Camshaft Installation Notes

[William Conner]

Yesterday I finally got around to installing the S3 cams that I have
been sitting on for several months.  With help from the FSM and the
archives (Lew Shadoff, Mike Kojima, and Naji) supplementing the
instructions from JWT, everything went pretty smoothly.  This is my
first adventure under the valve cover of the SR20 and I must say that
it's a whole lot more involved than the L-series engines I have worked
on in the past.  Stuff that used to be easy is now much more involved.
Anyway, when the moment of truth finally came, she fired right up and
ran with no unusual noises.  What a great feeling!

A couple of notes for the archives:

1.  You might need a 1 and 1/16 inch open end wrench as well as the 1
inch wrench to hold the cam while tightening or loosening the cam pulley
bolts.  I found the 1 inch wrench too small for the OEM cams so I had to
get a bigger wrench.  The bigger wrench was too big for the JWT cams, so
I used the 1 inch wrench for that.

2.  Perhaps the biggest PITA was installing the distributor.  It's a
very tight fit into the housing so it's hard to tell when the shaft has
properly engaged the notch on the cam.  I had trouble telling whether
the shaft was just jammed up against the bottom of the cam or had
actually engaged the slot.  I finally had to pull the distributor into
the housing with the mounting bolts.  It came in easily, so I concluded
that the shaft was seated properly in the cam notch.  If you encounter
this situation, make sure that no silicon sealant has been pressed into
the inside of the housing, lubricate the inside of the housing and don't
force the distributor to come in with the bolts.  If force is needed,
the shaft is not in the notch properly.

3.  I used the wooden block method to hold the chain tensioner.  Worked
great -- quick and easy.

4.  To install the camshaft caps I definitely recommend using a good
torque wrench that reads accurately at low torque levels.  I used a
Craftsman wrench that reads 25-250 inch pounds.  (One foot pound equals
12 inch pounds.)

That's it, otherwise it was just a matter of working carefully and
checking everything over before replacing the valve cover.

Bill Conner
1993 Classic