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Originally Posted by xXManwhoreXx
Wow! Low price! Is there a power level where the stock one starts to fail?
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it depends on a number of factors including mileage, driving style, the valespring pressure you're running, the cam you're running, and so on. For example, lets say you were to install something like our stage 2 package, the valvesprings are 66% stiffer than stock, and the lift is 30% more than stock (valvespring pressure increases with lift as you compress the valvespring), so when you multiply 1.66 x 1.30, you get 2.15, meaning that the approximate maximum load on the chain from the increase in valvespring pressure and valve lift is about 2.15 times what it is stock. These differences are always present, even at idle speeds. The other thing that can cause extra wear on the timing chain when you do the stage 2 kit is the power that you gain. A Stage 2 pacakge on a 3400 with a 65tb and stock exhaust manifolds will make right about 200whp, compared to 140 stock. This 43% gain in power means the engine can rev faster through the rpms under load, and this means extra stress on the timing chain. So these are rough numbers, but at idle and cruising speeds, the stage 2 package would be 2.15 times more stress/mile than stock, and at wide-open throttle it could be something like 3.07 times more stress/mile than stock. Now I'm not saying that a stage 2 package will make your timing chain fail very quickly (we've had customers put over 100k miles on our stage 2 pacakages), but it will reduce the amount of time before it stretches. Just imagine if you had a high hp turbo car and a heads and cam setup. $275 for piece of mind sounds like a cheap price to me
Sorry for all the math, I'm an engineer, that's my nature.