This is How I degreed my cams, there may be a better way, but it's how i did it. I'd love some feedback
Step 1: Find Top Dead Center (TDC) of Number One Cylinder, The Ignition System Stealth316 gives a good layout and explanation of the cylinder layout. This also becomes critical when degreeing the rear cylinder bank.
- There are various way to do this. I used a dial indicator and rotated the
motor until TDC was found. Notice we used some flat iron secured to the
head via middle valve cover holes to secure the iron and thus the dial
indicator base.
Step 2: Setting the Degree Wheel to 0 degrees at TDC. This is a Comp Cam Degree wheel available on summit, you can see the black insert in the middle, it perfectly fits the stock crank pulley bolt. I used an axle nut on the back to space out the degree wheel from the crankshaft for proper clearance (no picture sorry). I used a pointer also available on summit, and you can see I mounted it to the water pump upper bracket.
ONCE YOU SET THE POINTER AND DEGREE WHEEL YOU CANNOT DO TWO THINGS:
1.Touch the pointer.
2.Rotate the engine counter clockwise as this could loosen the crank bolt and throw off your degree wheel.
Step 3: Insert a Solid Lifter and Setup Dial Indicator on Valve Retainer. You must have a solid lifter. Period. I’ll go into more detail later but you want to keep the solid lifter in a loosen position so you can adjust it in car. Also lower the solid lifter all the way down or down far enough that you are confident that it is not preloading the valve. PRELOADING CANNOT EXIST AT THIS STEP.
When arranging the dial indicator on the valve retainer there are several factors to consider:
1.The dial indicator needs to be on a “flat” portion of the retainer with as little curvature as possible.
2.The dial indicator needs to clear the cam shaft with ZERO touching, bumping, rubbing, etc.
3.The angle of the dial indicator needs to be approximately parallel to the angle of the valve stem in 3 planes. Ie if you could extend the valve stem (red line) into space, that line and the dial indicator (yellow line) need to be as parallel as possible (blue lines showing the space between the lines is approximately equal and hence parallel).
Step 4: Setting 0.005” preload by using solid lifter. You’ve probably done this by now, but the cam lobe must be entirely off the valve, ie not depressing the valve (or more accurately in our case, completely off the rocker arm). If Not Rotate the engine until the cam lobe is pointing straight up from the valve (note: this is not straight up to the sky but straight up from the valve stem, ie use the red line from the last picture).
Zero the dial indicator, rotate the motor a few times to ensure that when you return to the completely off lobe position the dial indicator should return to zero. THIS MUST HAPPEN, if it doesn’t return to zero you have a problem and repeat step 3.
Now lengthen the solid lifter until you’ve added 0.005” preload on the dial indicator and lock the solid lifter.
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