I don't see how it would run, if at all, with the cams swapped. Not even sure if that's physically possible.
Since one cam is intake, the other exhaust, then the cam lob profiles must be different between the 2. The lift might be the same but I would think the duration would be different between intake and exhaust.

 

Yeah, your probably correct. Besides, I saw their marker writing its still on the cams and they at least had the marking correct. Pretty far fetched, I am just looking at any last hope of possibility before I junk this car, lick my wounds and move on

 

Part Number: 12578511 intake camshaft

Part Number: 12578512 exhaust camshaft

So not the same. It would either run or not. But it would not affect only one cylinder.

 

Don’t junk it, we’ll figure it out!! Take a breather, relax, sometimes that’s when the problem gets resolved.

 

I have a set of coil packs on the way from Amazon, got them free using a gift card. Just to try and see. If they don’t make a change I’ll send them back. This may not be my issue, but I wasn’t delighted with the intensity of the spark the other day. To me, it seemed somewhat weak compared to what I remember when I was a young wrench

 

Let us know how those work out for you.

 

Well you guys are not going to believe this.

The coil packs didn’t solve anything, I didn’t think they would. But I noticed a clambering sound coming from the engine, it was pretty loud when it was cold. As the car warmed up, it got a little better but the car still ran like ass. I used my long screwdriver and tried to locate the knock, it seemed like it was coming from the driver side.

I ripped the valve cover off (for the 18th time) and today for the first time I noticed a couple splinter like metal shavings. I got to looking closer, and I discovered those bozos at the machine shop charged me an extra $40 because I had cams in the head, but they did NOT tighten them down. They were finger loose. I torqued them to spec, put it all back together and Shazam. Car runs like new, no miss, no dead cylinder, cleared codes, no codes have come back.

Sheezus

 

Well that’s great news! 89 inch pounds and five minutes to torque them down and fixed! Luckily no damage to the camshaft fiction surfaces, they don’t have bearings, just the caps. Wow! But why the shavings? Did you inspect them ?

 

So far all I did was tighten them down. I need to pull it back apart and go through it. Half of me wants to go to the machine shop and demand a partial refund, but knowing them they will deny it

 

"You mean you didn't check our work?"

OK, I give; What was the machine shop supposed to do to the heads, if they charged extra for over head cams? Did they expect it to come in without cams? The $40 was to remove them, not R&R?