A good friend of mine , Paul McKay came over to help out with the cam/valvetrain swap . He's done quite a few cam swaps and had it done pretty qiuck . We did it in just over 3 hours start to finish. Here's Paul starting in on the valve springs.
Here's a pic of the man in action:
Next up, we got the LS1 on the engine stand to get access to everything
Valve springs completed on one side:
This is a pic of the stock oil pump and timing chain, they're outta there! I removed these while Paul did the springs on the other side. He took a stock balancer /pulley bolt and ground the "washer" part of the bolt head down so the harmonic balancer and lower timing chain sprocket would slide off easily when using the puller.
he used a compression leak tester and this tool to remove and reinstall the springs without removing the head. I bought Comp springs and titanium retainers .
Even though this motor only had 43,000 miles , we went ahead and also replaced the valve seals. Just good insurance , I think.