Hyper Blog

A camshaft is the one modification where the part itself is the smallest part of the decision.

Anybody can look at a dyno chart, find the cam that made the biggest number, and put it in a quote. That takes about four minutes. What it doesn't account for is your converter, your gearing, your existing modifications, whether there's boost in your future, and the fact that you're going to spend the next three years driving this thing to work.

We do a lot of camshaft work on 2005-and-up GM vehicles — Camaro, Corvette, Silverado, Sierra, Yukon, Tahoe, Envoy, and most LS and LT platforms in between. And over those builds we've landed on one rule that shapes everything else:

The right cam isn't the one that makes the most power. It's the one that makes great power in the car you actually own, and still runs right three years from now.

What Customers Actually Want

Ask ten people why they want a cam and nine will tell you the same two things: more power, and the sound. That's an honest answer and a good reason.

But there's always a third thing underneath it, usually unspoken: they want it to last. Nobody budgets for a cam swap expecting to be back in a shop in eighteen months chasing a lifter tick or a valvetrain noise that wasn't there before.

That third thing is what our packages are built around. The power and the sound are the easy part.

Why Our Quote Looks The Way It Does

Here's the honest reason, up front: our quote isn't for a camshaft. It's for a camshaft installation that holds together.

When you call three shops and one number comes back higher, it's usually not labor rate. It's that one shop is quoting the cam and the gaskets, and the other is quoting everything the cam actually requires. A camshaft swap puts the valvetrain under loads the factory parts were never specified for. The supporting parts aren't upsells. They're what makes the cam survivable.

Here's exactly what's in a Hypermotive camshaft package, and why each piece is there.

What's In the Package

The camshaft — BTR or GPI

We run Brian Tooley Racing and GPI cams. Both are companies that grind for a living, publish real specs, and stand behind what they sell. We're not shopping the cheapest core we can find on a marketplace.  There are other great options though, so please keep that in mind.

Which specific grind you get is the subject of the second half of this article, because that's where the actual work is.

Valve springs with retainers

This is the single most common reason a cam swap fails.

Your factory springs were specified for the factory cam's lift and the factory RPM ceiling. An aftermarket cam raises both. Run the old springs and they eventually float — the valve stops following the lobe, and at that point you're into the piston. That's not a maintenance item. That's an engine.

Springs and matched retainers go in on every package. There is no version of this job where we reuse factory springs behind a bigger cam.

Trunnion upgrade

The factory LS rocker arm trunnion rides on needle bearings, and those bearings are a known failure point even on stock engines. Add spring pressure and they fail sooner.

When one lets go, the needles go through the valvetrain. We upgrade the trunnions while the engine is already apart, because doing it then costs almost nothing in extra labor and doing it later means taking it apart again.

Pushrods — measured, not guessed

We measure pushrod length on every build. We don't order a length off a forum post.

Changing the cam changes valvetrain geometry. The correct pushrod length puts the rocker tip sweeping across the center of the valve. Get it wrong and you get uneven loading, accelerated wear on the valve tip and guide, and a valvetrain that's noisy from the day it leaves.

This step takes time and it's invisible in the finished car. It's also the difference between a quiet valvetrain and one you notice at every stoplight.

Upgraded lifters

Factory lifters are the other well-known weak point on these engines. We use LS7 lifters, Chevrolet Performance lifters, or Johnson lifters depending on the application.

If you want the long version of why lifter choice matters, we wrote one: LS lifter types explained — drop-in vs tie-bar, hydraulic vs solid.

Oil pump replacement

Higher spring pressures ask more of the oiling system, and by the time an engine is due for a cam it's often due for a pump. The front cover is already off during a cam swap — so replacing the pump costs very little extra now and a full teardown later.

All new gaskets and fresh fluids

Every gasket that comes off gets replaced. Nothing gets reused because it "looked fine." The car leaves on fresh fluids.

Custom tuning by Looney Tune Racing and Speed

A cammed engine without a tune is undriveable at best and unsafe at worst. Idle quality, fueling, timing, and — on an automatic — shift behavior all have to be rewritten around the new combination.

We hand that work to Looney Tune Racing and Speed, who know these platforms cold. It's included in the package, not bolted on afterward.

How We Actually Choose the Cam

This is the part nobody sees, and it's the part that determines whether you love the car or quietly regret it.

Your torque converter decides a lot of it

If your GM is an automatic, the cam has to be chosen around the converter that's already in the car. A cam that comes alive at 3,000 RPM behind a stock converter that flashes well below that gives you a car that feels slower than it did before — and a very frustrated owner.

Either the cam gets matched to your converter, or we have an honest conversation about changing the converter. What we won't do is sell you a cam that your drivetrain can't use. (If you're weighing a converter, start here: how to choose torque converter stall speed without guessing.)

Drivability is the whole game

Here's a number worth sitting with: 99% of your time in this car is going to be normal street driving.

Commuting. Parking lots. Drive-throughs. Stop-and-go. Maybe a few seconds a month at wide-open throttle, and those seconds are the ones the dyno chart measures.

So when we pick a grind, we're thinking about how it behaves at 1,500 RPM in traffic just as hard as what it makes at 6,500. A cam that's too much for the combination gives you a rough idle, poor vacuum, bad manners, and a car you stop wanting to drive. Nobody enjoys a car that's miserable to live with, no matter what the dyno sheet says.

If you want to understand the mechanism behind this, camshaft overlap explained covers why a cam feels the way it does.

What's already on the car changes the answer

Cam selection is downstream of everything else you've already done:

• Stroker motor? Different displacement wants different duration.
• Turbo kit? Boosted cams want different overlap than naturally aspirated cams — getting this wrong costs you both power and drivability.
• Nitrous? Changes what the engine wants on both sides of the lobe.
• Heads, headers, intake, converter, gearing? All of it feeds into the decision.

And not all boost is the same boost

This one catches people out, so it's worth being specific.

A cam that works beautifully behind a ProCharger is not necessarily the right cam behind a Whipple. They're fundamentally different machines. A centrifugal builds boost with engine speed, so it makes its power up top. A positive displacement blower makes boost almost immediately and shoves torque at you from down low.

Those two engines want different cams. Treating "supercharged" as one category is exactly the kind of shortcut that produces a car that's fast on paper and disappointing in the seat.

(Whipple vs Vortech vs ProCharger goes deeper on how differently those two types behave.)

Where you're headed, not just where you are

If boost is in your future, tell us now. Choosing a cam today that anticipates the supercharger you're buying next year costs nothing extra. Choosing one that doesn't means paying for the same job twice.

What That Adds Up To

A camshaft package from us is a complete, engineered combination: a quality cam from a company that grinds for a living, every supporting component the cam requires, nothing reused that shouldn't be, and a custom tune to tie it together.

It's chosen around your converter, your existing modifications, your plans, and the fact that you have to drive this thing every day.

That's the homework. It's most of what you're paying for, and it's the reason these builds are still running right years later.

Let's Talk About Your Combination

If you're thinking about a cam for your Camaro, Corvette, Silverado, Yukon, or anything else GM from 2005 up, call or email us.

Come ready to talk about what's already on the car, whether it's an automatic and what converter is in it, what you want the car to feel like, and where you want to end up. We'll put together a package built around that — and tell you honestly if what you're asking for and what you'll enjoy driving are two different things.

Hypermotive Performance — Fayetteville, NC. Call (910) 304-1383.