That said, the balancer aligns at 0° on the timing cover with the #1 piston is at TDC. I don't think I can be off by 2.5 teeth if I am dot-to-dot on the gears and #1 is at TDC along with the balancer reading...Right?
There really isn’t any direct link to where you installed the cam vs the balancer being indexed correctly.
The balancer is indexed off the key in the crank....... period.
The cam could be installed anywhere and the balancer would still just slide over the key in the same place.
Imagine the piston is at tdc, slide damper off. Remove timing set, rotate cam to any random position, reinstall timing set. Who knows where the cam is.
Crank has not moved, damper still where it was.
If you used a typical “3 way” adjustable timing set, there are 3 key ways.
Each has a mark to denote zero, advanced, retarded.
There is also a corresponding mark roughly 2.5 teeth counterclockwise from the keyway, and it’s that mark that you would use to line up with the mark on the upper gear.
The three instances I referred to all had the dot at the keyway lined up with the mark on the upper gear.
They were using the wrong dot.
If you degree the cam when you’re installing it, you avoid this type of mistake.
I seem to recall a member here experiencing this same thing on a 340 6bbl.
I’m pretty sure his ended up being the cam was installed just how I described it.
