Got it..I am doing cams first and LT's down the road....going to try the cam install myself with some help from friends.
Greg,
First off it is waaay better if you have another set of hands
There is a great write up on the cam swap somewhere on here, just do a search on cams and you will be able to find it. the most important thing (no matter how you do it is not to let slack get in the timing chain. Different people have done it different ways. I used a paint pencil to mark the chain and the sprocket to make sure I kept the sprocket in the same location. Onece I had the pahwer off I ran a wire thru the it and hooked a bungie chord ot the wire and then hooked the other end on one of the spokes on my front wheel. The important thing is just keep tension on the phaser/ chain.
also in the write up (I actually think it was from the comp website) show where the lobes need to be before pulling the phaser off. When the phaser comes off the cam will spin a tad, but don't worry about that. some people remove the followers that have a lobe on a valve. I didn't, I just put the cam into the phaser and just kind of snugged the bolt that holds it on, make sure the key is in the slot in the cam, set the cam into bearing journals. The end of the cam that is closest to the firewall will be raised up, just push on that end till you can get the cam tower bolts started a few threads and use the bolts to pull the cam into position.
Things to pay attention to are the followers, those little bastards will slip out of position if you just barely touch them. Also when using the cam tower bolts to pull the cam into position, be smart about it, make sure you don't have anything in a "bind". be sure to use some engine assembly lube or cam break in lube. If the cam tower caps aren't marked BE SURE to mark them, it is critical that the go back in exactly the same place, facing the same way, in other words don't get them rotated 180 degrees.
If you have turned a wrench at all, you won't have any issues with this. Just "pay attention to what you're doing".
Hope this helps you more than confuses you. Once you get going, what I have said will make sense.