Trailblazer SS Bolt-Ons - Tricks Are For Kids

Sure enough, within the hour we were ready to pop off the stock cylinder heads and have the motor broken down to the short-block. Next, we popped off the balancer using a balancer puller, unbolted the timing cover, and were ready to take out the stock camshaft and replace it with the new one. The stock camshaft has a lift of 0.525-inch on both the intake and exhaust sides, and a duration of 204 degrees on the intake and 211 degrees on the exhaust.

Trick Flow's Track Max camshaft increases lift to 0.585-inch on both the intake and exhaust and the duration to 228 degrees intake and 230 degrees exhaust if we were using the stock 1.70:1 rocker arms. We didn't. We went with Comp Cams 1.75 adjustable rollers, creating a total lift of 0.602-inch on both the intake and exhaust valves. Here, Justin adds some lubrication to the cam lobes and sets the new camshaft in place.

Trick of the trade: By gently placing a thin rod the entire length of the two oil valleys, Justin prevented the lifters from falling and thus eliminated the tedious step of removing the roller lifters to install the camshaft.

Once the camshaft was installed, we could bolt the timing cover back up and concentrate on the cylinder heads. The TFS 225cc heads were delivered assembled and ready for installation, which saved us many hours of installing valves and valvesprings.

First and foremost, we had to prepare the deck. This consisted of wiping off residue left by the original assembly and making sure the mating surfaces and cylinders are free of debris and fluid.

Check out brand spanking new Trick Flow GenX 225cc cylinder heads. They are complete with 65cc combustion chambers (same compression as stock), 225cc intake runners, 80cc exhaust ports, 2.055-inch intake valves, 1.575-inch exhaust valves, and titanium retainers. At the end of the day, the most important information about a cylinder head when making power is the runner flow numbers. These are measured in cubic feet per minute (cfm) and provide the most accurate reading of how a cylinder head is going to perform. While valve sizes and cubic feet of space in the runners is good information, stick to the flow numbers as a guide.

The graph at the end of this article is comparing a stock set of LS2 cylinder heads to the Trick Flow heads (as advertised) and it is measured at every 0.100-inch up to 0.600-inch, which is where our camshaft maxes out.

Once the surface was cleaned, we laid the head gasket in place and dropped on the cylinder heads.

As per the torque specifications, we torqued down the heads to 75 lb-ft...

...using ARP cylinder head bolts.

We decided to use Comp Cams' 1.75 adjustable roller rockers. The camshaft lift was multiplied slightly higher through the valvetrain than with the stock 1.70 rockers from 0.585-inch to 0.602. Many LS applications use shaft-mount rockers, which are easier to install and need no adjustment due to the zero-lash nature of the valvetrain.

We had these Comp Cams rollers sitting around and decided this was the perfect place to put them to use. Matt Hauffe, owner of Tune Time Performance, said, "I was surprised by the Comp Cams rockers once we got the motor running. There was zero noise coming from the valvetrain and once the adjustment was set, we didn't have to worry about them."