Well first off about 3 weeks ago me and a friend installed some itr cams in my gsr. Everything went pretty smoothly and quite fast. The car started right up but seemed to have a lil idleing problem but nothing major. Let it warm up and couldnt wait to hear my nice louds vtec well it wasnt loud . And it didnt feel much different. So i figured it had to do with my timing being off. Also i partly belived it had to do with me expecting too much out of just dropping in cams.

So i decided to pick up some cam gears my friend had lying around and throw them on and fix my timing. After a few weeks we finally got time to do the install. I was also planning on puttin in my vafc b/c i wasnt planning on the cam gears being too hard to install.

We started at 4 and we take apart everything and slide the stock cam gears off. While installing the first cam gear the ****** key feel down into the plastic timing belt cover . So we are like oh **** what are we going to do now. We could not see the key at all. So we decided to take the plastic off and get it out. Easier said then done. You have to take the crank pulley off in order to get the plastic off. So we figured the air gun would have enough power to do this HAHA not even close. Afer a few other methods of tryin to get the bolt off we were baffled. This is about 2 hrs into the install. We decied to go to auto zone and get a retractable magnet and pray we could get it out. That did absolutely nothing and i ended up breaking the piece of **** Now we have been workin on the damn thing for about 3 hrs. We dick around with the air gun a little bit more then decided to go back to my friends house and get one good ole' HT.

So after doing some reasearch on how to get the pulley off we realize its one of the hardest bolts to get off. Torqued down to 130 ft/lbs +. We go some ideas and decided to use a 4 Ft long pole over a solid steel wrench, put the car into 5th and slam on the ****** brakes like ther was no tomorrow. HOLY **** IT WORKED!!!. We got the bolt off and the key fell right out.

So we proceed to put the cam gears back on being EXTRA careful not to drop the key. We go them on and put everyting to what SEEMED to be correct timing. This took about another hr or so cuz we wanted to make sure the timing was PERFECT. So we put everything back together and go to fire up the car. The engine just spun. Didnt even sound like it wanted to fire. So at this point we were ****** stumped.

So we take everything back apart again. It was gettin spark so it had to be the timing. So we double check everything and it seemed to be correct. So we were like **** it...we are going to put the stock cam gears back on.

So after we take off the after market ones we compared them to the stock ones. We lined up the key holes and realized something was VERY wrong. The TDC was totally in a diff spot. IT was like 90 degrees off. So we put the stock gears back on and fire the puppy right up. It ran sooo much better then it did before. FINALLY WE WERE DONE!!

So we take her out for a spin. It is now 10 at night and about 10 degrees out so my feet were kinda cold from workin in a 50 degree garage. After she warmed up i got on her. HOLY ****! The sound is soo much more agressive. And the power from 4400 on is great. There is a slight dip in the power form 2-4k but after that u better hang on. You can actually feel when vtec engages then again when the butterflies or whatever open up at 5800. After 6k the sounds it amazing. I cant stop getting on it


CLIFFNOTES:

I am a dumbass

 

oh yea i cant wait to install my new header and vafc too..should be fun

 

What cam gears are off by 90 degrees?

 

so after the adj. cam gear plan didin't work..you went back to stock cam gears..you say at first it didn't run that well -but after swaping the cam gears off and on, back the original state-it worked fine -wonder what happened to it so that it ran bad at first then good after cam gear swapping??

 

the engine timing was off..so once we fixed that it ran better...it had nothing to do with the cam gears really

 

Chris....thats **** was a ****** bitch...after the timing was right the second time...considering the exhaust cam was a tooth off from the intake cam...i'd hope it would run better....**** runs fast now....V-afc....soon to come

through those Skunk cam gears in the garbage...OEM **** is always better...

 

so what year r cams did you go with?did you replace valve springs/retainers? i just ordered a 00' spec itr intake cam last night for my 94 gsr. i've heard of people using the itr intake in combo with a stock gsr exhaust cam--anyone got any info on this?? or should i just go a head and be looking for a itr exhaust cam ?

 

i got 98s with the stock valvetrain...

yea i dont think there is much diff between the exhuast cams..if any at all..

 

IMO, ITR cams are one of the best bang for the buck mods for a GSR. Cams, plus IHE will yield nice gains in a GSR.

 

ahhh yes the damn crank pully bolt....had to mess with that one for the eather pump install, yeah it took like 1.5 hrs to get apart and 20 min to put everything back together because of one bolt o well it dose its job.

 

the cams were def the best mod i have done so far

 

Don't you have to take the plastic covers off anyway so that you can tension the timing belt after installing the cams/gears and putting the belt back on?

Also for other people who might want to install gears, compare them to the factory gears BEFORE installing them. The stock gears have marks for every 180 deg. rotation of the crank (every 90 deg. on the gears), but also have UP marks to designate #1 cyl. TDC. Did the Skunk gears have these UP marks on them?

 

nah you don't need to take the cover off to take the belt off..just take two hands on the gears and slide it off...trust me i did it 9 times on BUCK's gsr...to get the timing perfect....

ya will didn't compare...which we should off...but the Skunk gears had like 3 marks on one gear...and 4 marks on the other...big mess...OEM **** is soooo much nicer.......

 

Not the whole thing, just gotta take the upper cover off, and theyre is a hole in the middle one for the 14mm tentioner