I have the engine back out of my car and decided to degree the cam this time. Its a mild 440 with a Comp XE274 cam. Anyway when I built this engine I misunderstood my machinist when he said the cam was designed to be 4 degrees advanced, and used the 4 degree advance triangle on the Cloyes 3 way. I set the timing chain back to the straight up position and and it came out at 104.5 intake center, Comp recommends 106. So I went back to the 4 advance setting and now its coming up 96. I was expecting 4 at the crank to move 2 degrees on the cam. Any advice? Am I just looking at this wrong? Thanks

Cam phasing (adv or ret the cam in relation to the crank is measured on the dampener in crank degrees. Even tho we are degreeing the "cam" forget about the cam & think only in crank degrees cuz we're taking numbers off of the crank dampener, for instance if one keyway that was marked Adv 4+ & it changed the centerline from 106 to 102 then the cam has been advanced 4 deg. Get the distance (in degrees) the centerline of the intake valve is from TDC in all 3 keyway positions & holler back. Make sure you are on the exact centerline of the lobe (not by eyeballin) and the marks closer to the center of the crank gear are for locating the keyway and the outer marks are for locating the teeth/chain. At straight up the keyway should be clocked at ~1:30. EDIT the 4 deg adv ground in means the cam grinder advanced the lobes 4 (crank) degrees on the stick when they mfg it not that you should adv it an additional 4 deg with the multi keyway. If they recommend 106 and you got 104.5 on the straight up keyway I'd be Ok with that. Is the VP clearance all good? to further clarify if your timing set has zero (straight up) 4 deg ret and 4 deg adv keyways then it can adv or ret the cam 4 deg from straight up. If your timing set has zero (straight up) and 2 deg ret and 2 deg adv then it can adv or ret the cam 2 degrees from straight up

Ok I installed it on the 4 degrees retarded setting and my intake centerline moved to 111.5. I'm using a dial indicator and averaging .050 either side of max lift to find exact center. At this point I may just go with the straight up setting its only off 1.5 degrees. I had this in a Dart with terrible traction issues, no wonder if the cam was that far advanced. Glad I decided to check this

Yes retarding it will shift the power band RPM range higher & reduce low end power slightly but I'd think the traction issues need alot of work elsewhere. You've got it correct on the centerline procedure

Thanks for your help. I had this car together once, trying to fix all the problems this time, and paint some stuff. Made a few passes with it a few years back 13.7 at 105 with a spinning 2.3 60'. Mostly my fault and a bad track. Going back together with Caltracs and a rebuilt front suspension

Compcams already has advance this cam 4 degree.
Install it on 0, and it's 4º advanced(with tight timming chain).