I've got a 440 I put together years ago. the engine ran. I never thought it ran well. 74 block .030 over, stock crank 3.75 stroke. diamond racing pistons 10.5:1 compression. pistons are .005 in the hole without gaskets. running edelbrok rpm heads with 84cc chambers.

the cam is a mopar .557 lift 296 duration solid lifter cam. here is the issue, I went to degree the cam, got the timing wheel setup on TDC with a stop in the spark plug hole.

now when I measure the cam timing I seem to be 11 degrees off. I measured the cam at .050 lift. I have an adjustable timing chain set. but that only goes +/-8 degrees and I seem to be 11 degrees off. now i'm saying i'm 11 degrees off because i'm going by the intake opening point. should I measure the entire lobe profile and find the center? sorry a little new to this but being that far off has me worried i'm doing something completely wrong.

btw the engine only had 120 psi cranking compression when it was list fired. leads me to believe the cam is actually 11 degrees retarded, as advanced should bring the cranking compression up, and 120 psi sounds awfully low for this engine.

Must be retarded 11,I think 11* is 1 tooth on the crank gear but I could be wrong.

Yep. Check the dots, it is probably out one tooth, retarded.

1 tooth is 12 degrees. Close enough to show that it is more than likely off a tooth. But don't trust Clanton. He sniffs race gas and can't use a timing light (Read your other post )

LOL Thanks for making me laugh.

I will check in the morning about the tooth being off, but from memory i'm sure they were installed dot to dot.

A tooth is 14deg on a double roller set up.

Absolutely don't go by only one timing event.
Check the intake and exhaust open/close points, then determine the installed c/l vs the desired c/l.

I have come across timing sets that had a dot on the wrong tooth 3 times..... So I never assume dot to dot is going to put the cam where it should be.
If you're using a 3 way set, between the +/- 8deg, and a bushing kit, you'll be able to get it within 1 deg.
Or, if it's way off and you don't want to deal with the bushings you can get a 9 way set or a Cloyes hex-a-just.

I thought I was the only one to ever do this. I messed my cam timing up and still don't have good compression. Even after putting it back to where it suppose to be my compression is low. I took the heads off to check for bent valves and everything was good. My thought is the rings never sealed. I plan on reringing it this winter. Good luck with your engine. Birdtracker

You need to find the actual intake lobe centerline by finding the crank angle of two points equally down from max lift on either side. Then you need to somehow average the two angles.

I would first check the opening and closing at .050 lifter rise on both the intake an exhaust lifters, if you haven't done both yet, and then move the cam gear one tooth towards the passenger side of the block with the dots aligned to start with like it is now and then recheck the cam timing at .050 lifter rise on both lobes I would then degree the cam so I ended up with 3 to 6 degrees advanced on the intake lobe
As already said one tooth on most double roller timing sets is between 11 and 14 degrees depending on the degree wheel and the cam timer
Let us know what you find and do, changing cam timing 10 to 13 degrees retarded on the cam timing to straight up or advanced will turn a slug into a hero

here's a good read on breakin. "breakin secrets" at www.mototuneusa.com scroll down till you get to it. OP as said I would find intake lobe CL (highest point on the lobe peak) which'll be the number of degrees that number is away from piston TDC, IE 106 degrees. Holler how it turns out

Fwiw, I'd shoot for a 106-108 intake c/l.
If you had to move the cam several degrees to get it there, then I'd recheck the v/p clearance(unless when you checked it during the original build it had tons to spare).

Then before I buttoned everything back up I'd check the cranking compression again.

Try this to double check yourself when installing a chain or degreeing a cam. Rotate engine to TDC, make sure it is true TDC, on the exhaust stroke, this is the overlap period. Your exhaust valve will be closing and your intake will be opening. If the cam is installed heads up the lifters will be the same height out of their bores on both lifters. If the cam is advanced the intake lifter will be slightly higher, if retarded the exhaust will be higher. I use a small pocket ruler to sit on the lifters to visually see which one is higher or lower.

Jerry , you measuring off the lifter itself?

I took the lash out of the system and was measuring at the valve retainer. I have 1.6:1 comp rockers on there. and was measuring .080 inches at the spring retainer.

right now the cam gear being marked a tooth off is making a lot of sense. hopefully i'll have time before the end of the day to get it rechecked.

I was going to swap a .528 cam in its place because this one was a dog down low. maybe if I get the cam timing sorted out, I wont have to.

You will be redoing the ign timing and that will help also maybe.Noone has said it yet but it is the cam gear that is off 1 tooth not the crank like I said.

Just to clarify this is going right for you, you say you have the piston stop in. That is used to zero the dial, then taken out, right?

yes I took the stop out after I zeroed the pointer at TDC

For a symmetrical lobe one finds 0.050 opening point and closing point and takes the average of the two to get the centerline of the lobe. Asymmetrical lobes are a little different and I am not sure how to go about that. Possibly find the opening and closing points at 0.300" lift?

Then I'd do the same thing for an exhaust lobe to find the LSA. It should agree closely with the published LSA.

R.

this is what Hughes says for degreeing a camshaft that is asymmetrical

http://www.hughesengines.com/Upload/productInstructions/camshaft_instructions_Mar_2016.pdf

edit: i did a little reading after this one ^ and it looks like lunati says to degree based off of the intake lobe opening vs. what the cam card says. ie. if the card says intake opens at 8* before and it opens 10* before then it's 2* advanced.

comp says to add the degrees from intake open and close and divide by two...