I didn’t have too much time to work in the garage tonight, but I have been wanting to degree the cam before any more work happens on the engine. I started by attaching the degree wheel to the crankshaft and fashioning a pointer from a piece of safety wire attached to a bolt.
I fastened a dial caliper to the block so that I could determine TDC on the #1 cylinder. I found the dwell point at TDC at zeroed out the indicator. I then read the angle off of the degree wheel at 0.050″ before and after TDC.
After splitting the difference, I adjusted the degree wheel TDC.
I then installed a dial indicator in the lifter bore for the #1 intake valve.
I rotated the crankshaft until I got the lifter onto the base circle of the cam lobe then rotated the crankshaft further to determine the angle at 0.050″ of lift on the opening and closing side of lobe. I also determined the lobe centerline using a similar technique.
I then moved the indicator to the exhaust lifter bore and repeated the process.
I jotted down the values I read off of the dial indicator. The centerline was right on at 111º on the intake valve and 121º on the exhaust valve, so I know the cam is degreed correctly. I’m seeing a 6-7º greater duration at 0.050″ though. This could be due to a larger radius on the dial indicator ball end than the lifter roller, but I’m happy with the numbers.
