| This is the stock LT1 timing setup. Mine really wasn't in bad shape for 100K miles, but it definately had streched. This setup isn't good much above 5500 RPM, and since the Hot Cam really comes alive above that I decided to go with something else - a Pete Jackson Gear Drive. I wanted to try the gear drive because I like the "whine" plus I hadn't seen any other LT1's with one and I wanted to try something different. GM does offer a LT4 performance timing set that would work, but it's only a single roller and costs about $250 (as opposed to $150 for the gear drive); the only reason you'd need that would be to retain the mechanical water pump which doesn't work very well anyway. Plus the Meziere pump looks cool too! The cam / crank spacing is the same as a normal small block, so I thought the only problem would be getting rid of the gear driven water pump (you can see the shaft sticking out above the cam gear). Turns out I was half right. Notice the crank positon sensor in the picture ... it interfered with the idler gears on the gear drive, but I called up Ed Wright at Fastchip and he said to just leave it out and they'd take it out of the computer. That works because the '96 was the only LT1 to use this and the computer gets the cam position from the OptiSpark anyway. So that was almost the only other hang up ... |
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