shit, I got to this too late.
Doing cams, and just the cams/lifters, you don't have to take the drive belts off, the tire off, the lower splash shield, the crank pulley or the lower timing cover.
All you do is pull the upper cover, rotate the engine to TDC, zip tie the cam gears to the timing belt, detension the timing belt with the long tool(which I make and sell cheaply).
Then pull the valve cover and pull ONE CAM AT A TIME. You pull one gear off, hold the cam gear up with a long bungee chord to the hood. This way the tension stays on the belt and nothing can slip or go out of time. Once the gear is held up with a bungee chord and off the end of the cam, you take the cam out. and to make it easier so that the tension of the belt doesn't pull the gears togeather, I slide a short piece of old timing belt between the gears. It fits perfectly into one of the gears and flat against the other. Works like a charm.
Eric, doing it the easy way or the hard way, there are several areas where you can mess up and either damage your engine or make it run bad. Cam caps HAVE to go back exactly the way they are. Cam cap torque is critical. Putting the cam gears back on the way I suggest doing it is harder and a bit tricky, but its easier by FAR than doing a whole timing belt job. Also if you drop anything down the lower timing belt cover, you have to get it out. As well, the rocker arms are a bit tricky to put on as they just sit there and can be knocked loose when you put the cam on top of them. easy once you have done it but tricky the first time. The CAS is another area, you have to make sure you line it up. There are marks but it can go in 180deg out of phase and the car will still run. You CAN leave it in the head tho if you wiggle and work the intake cam out. I would say the actual hardest thing is to break loose the exhaust cam gear bolt. There is nothing to hold the cam steady against. With the intake cam, you can put a wrench on the cam and rest it against the exhaust cam, but the exhaust cam has to rest against the head and its really thin there. You have to either have an impact and air or get really creative. they are on there TOIGHT!! It will sound like you broke the cam or bolt when they come loose. Also lock tite the bolts back in too(blue not red) And you have to let the car sit for a few hours just to be safe about letting the lifters settle so they are not pushing the valves open too far. I have an idea that this is a BS step, but I also haven't got the balls to try it out, so I will tell you to do it too.
I have done many many sets of cams this way. I have actually done two heads this way too, when customers were too cheap to pay for a whole timing belt/water pump job.
There used to be a link at Pro Street Online that had a pictoral of this(basically) but its not really there, and only the text, no pictures now.
