John Stoessel Cam Weld Experience

As a "lurker" in this newsgroup and a frequent visitor to the v8sho.com website for the last few years, I was quite aware of the inherent problems that our Gen III SHOs had with the cam sprockets possibly coming loose, which could result in extensive engine damage.  Yet, I tempted fate, and continued driving my '98 SHO, bought used back in 2000, though always with that nagging worry that one day that dreaded dieseling sound may happen and then a costly engine repair bill would follow shortly.

I finally went for it about two weeks ago, and made the firm decision to get my cams welded.  The odometer had past 100k miles about 4 months back, so I knew that I needed a 100k service anyway to see whether any valve lash adjustments were necessary.  As a west coast residence, my options were to either drive up north near Sacramento, or head due east into Arizona for cam welds.  However, after reading Bob Taylor's post from 4/11 about his cam weld experience with John Stoessel (john@ancoengineers.com)

I decided to contact John to ask for his service.  John, who is a very knowledgeable car enthusiast and the proud owner of a Gen I and Gen III SHO (along with being a fellow UCLA Bruin graduate like myself :D) , had offered his services to me about a year ago, but at the time, I had turned it down because it would have involved having the cams shipped out of state to get welded, which meant I would have been left without a usable car for at least a week.  Now, however, John is able to get the cams welded by a close associate of his from work who has had many years of experience as a certified welder (including experience accumulated from working at a nuclear power plant), which means the turnaround time now, assuming everything goes smoothly, went from more than a week to less than 3 days.  For a very reasonable fee, the following was agreed to be done to my car:

- All four cams would be removed, welded, and reinstalled.
- Partial power steering fluid change (since pump had to be moved during the disassembly phase) with Mercon V ATF for the P/S system
- Replacing my 50k miles old spark plugs with new Motorcraft plugs (I provide the plugs)
- Coil cold resistance measured and logged, then rotate rear coils to front and front to rear.
- Insulate rear wire harness
- Valve adjustments, if needed.  John would provide log of measurements (before / after adjustments) and would provide shims, but I reimburse him for the number of shims that had to be replaced.
- Surge tank cleaned.
- Butterfly valve cleaned.
- Runners cleaned.
- Oil and oil filter change (I provide oil and filter)
- Replace cam seal (I provide seal)
- Digital photos of the entire process

After several email communication back and forth between myself and John, discussing what I wanted to have done, what I was going to provide, and how much it would cost, I finally made the trek to his home on a Friday evening after work, fighting the US 101 traffic to the western edge of L.A. county where John lives.  After spending about 4 hours with John, myself, and a fellow coworker of mine talking about Taurus SHOs and cars in general, my coworker and I finally left late Thursday night, with me knowing that my car was in good hands.

Late afternoon Saturday, and I receive a call from John telling me that my car was almost done.  After an uneventful drive to his place, I inspected the front cams to see how the welding was done before John reassembled the valve covers and coil packs on the front bank.  John informed me that the welding went smoothly and that none of my cam sprockets were loose beforehand.  (I guess I  have been quite fortunate)  He also had to swap out 10 exhaust valve shims that were found to be just outside-of-spec.  Luckily, he had those shims available, so a special order wasn't needed.

In the meantime as John was reassembling the items on my SHO, I took his '97 SHO out for a spin, and came away impressed at what a customized SHO with a good exhaust system is capable of.  (Note: asides from a transmission cooler, fog lights, and tinted windows, my '98 SHO is bone-stock)  He had a friend, who was waiting on John to do some upgrades to his car that night, who had a black '97 SHO that was much more customized, and after a ride in his car, I came away even more impressed at how well a SHO can handle with the right suspension part equipped on it.

About an hour or so later, after my two "joyrides" in a SHO other than my own, John was finally done.  The car started up perfectly with no problems whatsoever, no leaks, and no strange noises.  The only hitches in the experience that I found were

- New cam seal was not installed because an incompetent Autozone in my area never got the special-order seal in by the time I took my car to John,
- John did not have any Mercon V fluid available to put into my power steering system (had to resort to using Mercon III instead; I had previously flushed my P/S system with Mercon V at 90k miles, which is why I wanted Mercon V), and
- John lost the cap to the A/C low pressure line valve, and could not find it.  Now why that cap had to come off in the first place, I still have no idea ...

Other than those three items, everything else went smoothly and as expected.  John's associate did a wonderful job with the welds on the four cams' sprockets, while John did a very good and thorough job with reassembling the engine, cleaning the intakes, and doing the valve adjustments.

John offered to help me out in the future if I ever wanted any other work done on my car, and after this experience, I believe I will take him up on that offer.  I'm sure that eventually in the future, I'll find myself missing the thrill that I got from trying out his SHO and his friend's SHO and how the car handles corners so much better with the proper suspension equipment.  So, for any future suspension upgrades, or if there is a repair that I can't figure out how to do on the engine, I will definitely contact John for his assistance.

As for the exhaust system?  After hearing what a V8 SHO *should* sound like on John's SHO and his friend's SHO, I am more determined now to make the switch to a set of Flowmaster 40 or Magnaflow mufflers in the near future.  Granted, Ford did a hell of a job damping the V8 sound on our car to make the car "sound" like a family car, but heck, nothing beats the deep exhaust tone of what a V8 engine is capable of making.

As I left John's home, I felt at peace with my car, now knowing that the cams are welded and that the likelihood of them suddenly going bad on me has diminished significantly.  In the past, I've been relatively gentle with the engine (e.g. not "rev-happy") because of the fear that the cam sprockets would spin themselves loose.  Now that my cams are welded, I can wind up the engine a bit more:  not just for the thrill, of course, but to let the secondaries do some work to keep its passageway clean.  Long trips to the Sierra Nevada mountain range or to AZ, UT, or NV will be more worry-free.

So, if there are any fellow SoCal residents on this list who have been seriously thinking about getting your cams welded, drop John an email or give him a call to inquire about his service.  The service he's providing is a true asset to the V8 SHO community in Southern California, and anyone who wants to keep his/her SHO for a number of years should definitely consider getting something done to your cams, whether it be welding or pinning.  Anything is better than leaving the cams as is because for cheaper than the price of a valve adjustment at the dealer, you could get your cams welded and the valves adjusted by knowledgable SHO enthusiasts who knows how to work on this "exotic" 3.4L V8 engine.

Regards,

-Alan Quan

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'98 Vibrant White, 107k Miles, *Welded*
Living in the land we natives like to call "SoCal"