Hi all - I did the timing belt, seals, valve check, cam swap on my 80GT last weekend.

Piece of cake. I've worked on a lot of cars over the years, and this thing is by far the easiest major surgery I've done. Ever. I couldn't believe that there was room to get the fan out with the shroud still in, for instance. The valves were all at .013 before the swap and .016 after... except for one that was at .017, and I didn't have the right size adjuster. I figure that's close enough, but welcome differing opinions.

I found the top of the head to be very sludgy. Is there an oil treatment I can run to loosen/dissolve this stuff? Or should I just let sleeping dogs lie? This further strengthens my opinion that this car has been seriously neglected in its past.

So imagine my surprise when my 1980 California car had a B cam in it. I expected an L. Could this just be a late Ca/Fed changeover? Or has someone somewhere put a different cam in it? Or a different engine? Is there a way I can see if this engine is original?

After jamming back to work to check this site I went ahead and put the A in anyway. Interesting to note that the A and B are almost identical except for the overlap. (23 vs 44 deg respectively). Has anyone made a similar swap? I sure wouldn't mind better mileage, getting about 18 now. Beyond that, the car seems much torquier off idle to about 4,000; I didn't do back to back seat of the pants tests, but if definitely feels stronger. 'Course, the stronger engine usually leads to a more aggressive driving style... heh heh.

Is there any value to the B cam? or should I just save it to swap back in when I kill or sell my GT?

Thanks a lot!
Kyle



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1980 242GT 197K, 1990 744Ti 113K