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I'll guarantee you that the thousands of 340's 440's 383's and probably street hemi's that went down the production line NEVER SAW A DEGREE WHEEL. The factory assembly line folks slapped the sprocket "on the marks" and down the line it went.

AND ONE LAST TIME. If you get the cam "on the marks" degreeing will NOT do you any good until you have a baseline. Depending on whether this is a "torque monster" street engine or an RPM screamer, you won't know which way to push the wheel until you find the baseline.



This is my point exactly.If you lined it up "on the marks" as you call it, the timing marks could be off and you would never know.The only way to check the marks is to degree it. You say that you have done thousands of engines and never degreed a stock motor, then how do you know they were all correct? One of the motors that I found to be off 8 degrees was one that I had built before I started checking the cam degree. I always wondered why is had less low end torque than I expected. I agree that the chances are slim, but I have had two in my "short" 30 years of engine building.