Cam gear install help

[SlamMan]

Putting in adjustable cam gears soon. Anything I need to keep in mind so as not to screw anything up?

[BoarderAJAX]

I know that putting cam gears isn't hard at all from the last rebuild that i did. But what i would recommend is that you take the cams off the head and off the car. This would be the safest way to do it. The only annoying thing is that you got to redo all of your timing. Which isn't hard you just got to make sure that when you reinstall the cams to line up the timing marks on the cam gears and make sure you don't skip any teeth

[john]

Remove the valve cover, and the cam will have a spot on it for a wrench to hold it in place while you break the cam gear bolt loose.

Center your cam gears on their respective timing marks before doing anything.

Use some type of clip to hold the timing belt on the other cam gear (assuming you have a DOHC motor) for reference.

Loosen up the timing belt tensioner and remove it from the car. Recompress it SLOWLY in a vice, and fashion a pin out of some hard wire to hold the piston in place once it's fully compressed.

With the tensioner off the car, the belt will have some slack in it, enough to comfortably remove the stock gear as well as slide the aftermarket gear into place. The cam & gears are keyed, so you can only install the new gear(s) one way.

Reinstall the tensioner.

Ensure that the new gear lines up with their timing marks as well as the correct ribs on the timing belt. Once you are satisifed that the timing marks are lines up, pull the pin on the tensioner.

At least that's how I did it in my cars. There is no need to remove the head from the car, nor the cam(s). Unless you have other work to do on the head...