BTR Truck Norris Camshaft, Gen 3, 4 LS Truck, Hydraulic 3-Bolt

• Great choice for street driven Vortec LS Gen 3 and Gen 4 V8 truck engines
• Choppy idle that lets everyone know your truck’s LS means business
• Increases mid-range and top end power without sacrificing low end torque
• A good fit for naturally aspirated or boosted applications
• Camshaft requires 3-bolt cam gear (later Gen 4 LS engines use a single cam bolt)
• Upgraded valve springs are highly recommended
• Active Fuel Management must be deleted if equipped
• Custom engine management tuning will be needed for best performance

Power Up Your Modern GM Pickup’s Vortec LS engine With a Simple Cam Swap

GM’s LS engine platform reaches across most of the General’s lineup of vehicles. However, it is nowhere more prevalent than in its line of Vortec powered V8 pickup trucks from Chevrolet and GMC. With millions of these trucks on the road they have become a great source for LS swap fodder into everything from classic muscle cars and hot rods to even motorcycles and airplanes! But who says you can’t enjoy that Vortec LS in your daily driven pickup by adding some power to it?

GM’s trucks are designed for work and daily chores like hauling the family. As such, GM engineers designed the LS “Vortec” engine series in these trucks for a long life at relatively low engine rpm with an emphasis on torque. One of the best “bang for the buck” upgrades you can do to your truck LS engine is an LS cam swap to something with more lift and duration. The Truck Norris cam for Gen3 and Gen4 LS engines from Brian Tooley Racing (BTR) is the hot ticket for a Chevy 5.3 cam upgrade, especially if you’re considering other performance upgrades like gears, high stall torque converter, or even a turbo in your Silverado or Denali. Of course, it’ll be right at home in the Vortec 4.8 or even the 6.0 as well.

Dyno Proven to Increase Horsepower and Torque in Your Gen 3 or Gen 4 LS Truck Engine

Brian Tooley Racing knows how to make power. Brian Tooley ran one of the top cylinder head shops in the country and he knows how to find power in CNC porting and what camshaft profiles that work with any engine combination. His line of LS camshafts has benefitted from hundreds of hours of computation design, airflow measurements, and good old fashioned engine dyno testing. The BTR Truck Norris cam is perfect for those looking for more horsepower with a noticeable idle chop that will turn heads and make great power.

The BTR cam profile features .552-inch lobe lift with a split pattern duration of 212-degrees intake and exhaust in the mid-220s at .050-inch lift. A narrower lobe separation angle (LSA) of 107 degrees creates a wider, more usable, power band, though will require a competent tuner to provide the best drivability. Suitable for naturally aspirated LS engines, this BTR Truck Norris cam has what it takes to make more power and torque in your Vortec-powered Chevrolet or GMC truck and provide that great idle rpm chop everyone wants. We recommend an aftermarket torque converter with a stall speed of at least 2,400 rpm to take full benefit of this camshaft. Steeper (numerically higher) rear gears can be beneficial as well (and are always fun!). This cam’s power comes on in the mid-range and keeps going to the top of the tach without sacrificing that all important streetable low end torque that gets you moving when the light turns green.

A Cam Swap Worth the Time and Effort for Your Truck’s LS Engine

Adding this BTR Truck Norris cam to your Vortec 4.8, 5.3, or 6.0 is as straight forward as any other LS cam swap. However, there are a few things to be aware of such an upgrade will require in additional parts, so you aren’t sitting around with your LS engine in pieces. For starters, due to the increased lift of the BTR Truck Norris cam, a valve spring upgrade is highly recommended here. We suggest the PAC ovate beehive spring kit for this application. While you’re in there BTR suggests replacing the valve seals with their LS valve seal hat kit. Additionally, if you are working on a Gen IV LS with a cam gear retained by a single bolt (early Gen IV and all Gen III use a more traditional 3-bolt cam gear retention) you will need to convert to a 3-bolt cam gear to install the BTR Truck Norris cam along with new cam gear retaining bolts.

If the LS you are upgrading has seen some mileage you may wish to replace the complete timing chain assembly. We offer several 3-bolt cam gear timing sets for the LS engine family to choose from. Furthermore, it would not be a bad idea to inspect and replace the rocker arm trunnions on your LS engine as well. Besides addressing the high mileage wear on the factory trunnions, adding our LS rocker arm trunnion upgrade kit provides an upgraded steel trunnion (versus the OE powdered metal piece) with fully sealed roller bearings. The trunnions are secured within your rocker arms via snap rings, so you don’t have to worry about the dreaded LS trunnion failure that ends up with your LS ingesting the trunnion’s needle bearings causing a catastrophic failure.

For LS applications that use the factory Active Fuel Management feature (AFM is often referred to as Displacement on Demand, and mostly found in trucks and SUV models) you will need to disable the AFM system by replacing the AFM-spec lifters with traditional roller lifters when installing a BTR cam. To do so you need to remove the cylinder heads, so we include new head gaskets, torque-to-yield head bolts, timing and water pump gaskets, lifter trays, and a non-AFM valley cover to complete the conversion. We offer two AFM delete kits, our Gen IV 5.3L AFM delete kit and our Gen IV 6.0L AFM delete kit to get your LS cam swap squared away and ready for your BTR truck cam upgrade today!