How do I know if I'm on the compression or the exhaust stroke? If I put the heads on will the headers glow if I am 180 deg out? Will this hurt my motor? If I turn the distributor around will this fix it if this happens?
Pull the #1 spark plug and have someone "bump" the starter over while you have your finger over the spark plug hole. You want to feel the pressure of the compression push against your finger. Once this happens you need to look at your balancer to see where the "0" is and it should be close to the pointer. You may need to turn it at the crank a tad to line it up.
Pull the #1 spark plug and have someone "bump" the starter over while you have your finger over the spark plug hole. You want to feel the pressure of the compression push against your finger. Once this happens you need to look at your balancer to see where the "0" is and it should be close to the pointer. You may need to turn it at the crank a tad to line it up.
put lifters in each bore for that cylinder, when theyre both at the lowest and piston highest, thats tdc for that cylinder.
i dont see how you could get your cam 180 off in the first place though, as long as the dots are lined up on the timing chain you should be fine? unless you're just trying to get the crank there, which would mean the keyway on the crank would be straight up.
When your cylinder heads are off and a camshaft is out, the engine does not know or care what is the compression stroke or exhaust stroke. They are the same until you install the camshaft with the #1 piston at TDC.