Cam installation difficulties

Which cam maunfacturer is it?? My Trickflow cam was similar with the different dowel pins. One is for early 302 years and one is for later. More info and it shouldnt be too bad to fix you up.

The two cam gear drive pins relate to fuel pumps drives for carbed cars and cam gears. The long one should extend out through the cam gear and through the old style one piece fuel pump eccentric.

The shorter one sticks out of the cam far enough to engage the cam gear, but leaves the outer part of the cam gear hole for the tab on the later two piece fuel pump eccentric to fit into.

Not sure which one goes on an efi motor, but I would think the long one, since it needs to drive the cam, and be retained by the cam bolt washer.

I have been able to get all of mine out of stock/aftermarket cams and back in, with nothing more than vice grips.

Here's how to degree and check p to v:

Positive stop – obtain an old spark plug for the Ford engine – most of us have at least one laying around. Put it in your vice, and with a tool of destruction you deem appropriate – cut off the ground tip and bust up the ceramic around the center electrode. Keep pounding to get the ceramic and center electrode removed so you’ve got a good ¾” or so of hollow space inside what used to be the ‘business’ end of the spark plug. If you happen to break the ceramic on the other end of the spark plug, don’t worry about it. Once you’ve got a nice hollow space in the tip of the plug, take a 5/16” tap, and cut threads inside that end of the plug. I found that diameter to go right in without any drilling required. Once you’ve cut threads, screw in a 5/16" bolt about 1.5” to 2” long. Then take your hack saw and cut the head off the bolt. Wouldn’t hurt to take your file/grinder and dress up the freshly cut surface so no sharp edges or shrapnel enter the combustion chamber. Also clean up the threads on the plug so that it easily screws into and out of the plug hole.

Determining TDC – remove the passenger side valve cover. Remove rockers from the intake and exhaust valves on the #1 cylinder. Rotate the engine (socket on crank bolt) until the #1 piston is down the cylinder on the intake stroke. Unscrew the spark plug in that cylinder, and replace it with the positive stop you just made. Only screw the positive stop in hand tight. Install your cam degree wheel and pointer (no easy task in some cases as harmonic balancer and other accessories will have to be removed). You may want to remove all spark plugs at this point because it will make it easier to smoothly turn the engine over in small increments. GENTLY rotate the engine clockwise until the piston comes to rest against the stop. Note the degree wheel reading. GENTLY rotate the engine in the opposite direction until the piston comes to rest against the stop. Note the degree wheel reading. TDC is exactly half way between these readings. Calculate where that position is on the degree wheel, remove the piston stop from the cylinder, and rotate the engine to TDC as you calculated it.

Degreeing the cam – install the camshaft in the straight up or dot to dot position to start with. Set your dial indicator up over the #1 intake valve lifter or pushrod. Rotate the engine clockwise until the intake lifter/pushrod just begins to rise. Follow the dial indicator and stop the rotation when the lifter is at .050” lift. Take a reading on the degree wheel. It should match your cam card information for the number of degrees at .050” lift on intake valve opening. For example, the cam card on an E303 cam says that the intake should be open .050” right at top dead zero – 0 degrees TDC. So if you rotate the engine until your dial indicator shows .050” lift on the intake opening, the your degree wheel should be pointing right at tdc. If you’re within a degree or two, then you can go ahead and check the .050” closing timing, as well as the opening and closing events for the exhaust valve. They should all match up with the cam card info within a degree or two. If, for example, at .050” you’re supposed to be at 0 degrees TDC (from the cam card), and after your dot to dot install you’re reading 4 degrees after TDC at .050”, then the intake valve is opening too late (4 degrees later than it should). To adjust this, you need to make the intake open 4 degrees earlier (right at tdc), so you’ll have to advance the cam by 4 degrees. To do this you slide your indexed timing set off, you select the “4A” slot on the crank gear (instead of the straight up position), align it with the dot on the cam gear and reinstall. Remeasure as described above – you should now read .050” lift right at TDC. Many contemporary cams have assymetrical lobes – so I wouldn’t install the cam using the lobe centerline method – the centerline can be difficult to find. I recommend using the .050” lift timing events for the install – check all 4 of them to be sure the cam is doing what the cam card says it should be doing.

Drop valve measurement – now that the piston is at TDC (be sure you're at TDC during overlap - between exhaust and intake strokes) you can safely remove the valve springs on the intake and exhaust valves. I used an inexpensive KD tool for a small block Chevrolet (Blasphemy!). It bolts into the pedestal and has a crow’s foot that sits over the spring retainer. It’s nothing more than a pry bar. Be sure to screw the rocker bolt far enough into the pedestal to hold the tool. You (or your big friend Bubba) are going to apply significant force on the lever to compress the spring. A small magnet is invaluable for grabbing the keepers once the spring is compressed. Also, a couple of taps (lightly – careful here) with a hammer on the retainer can help free up the keepers. The valves may or may not drop down and touch the piston – be sure it’s at TDC to limit the valve movement. Set up your dial indicator over each valve. Rotate the engine to about 20 degrees BTDC. Now, in 5 degree increments, until you reach 20 degrees ATDC measure the distance between valve closed and valve touching the piston. You can move the valve up and down with your fingers, or if the seals are loose, up with your fingers, gravity will take care of down. You’ll have maps of closed valve to piston contact distances every 5 degrees from 20 BTDC to 20 ATDC for intake and exhaust. Rotate the engine back to 20 BTDC (back the way you just came – if you rotate the other way, the piston will drop all the way to the bottom and you’ve got valves dropping down into the cylinders – DON’T DO THAT!!) and set the dial indicator up over the intake and exhaust lifters (or pushrods if you don't have a dial indicator extension). Make the same measurements on both lobes – a map of lift on intake and exhaust lift at 5 degree increments from 20 BTDC to 20 ATDC. Multiply the lift times the rocker ratio. That is valve lift. At each 5 degree point, subtract valve lift from the valve closed to piston contact measurement. That is your piston to valve clearance. It should be more than .080” on intake and .100” on exhaust for engines revving less than 6500 rpm. As your rpm increases, your clearance should increase. If you’re revving to 8500 rpm, you probably want on the order of .125” to 150” on intake/exhaust to be safe.

By the way -- getting a custom from Ed (or anyone) and NOT degreeing it means you're just guessing at the cam timing -- which defeats most of the purpose of going with a custom in the first place. Degree it - you'll learn tons about how things work, and it'll be working like Ed intended it to.

Buy the tools - you can get a degree wheel and a dial indicator with magnetic stand for less than $100 -- and you'll learn a ton about how it all works. Even if you pay your shop to do it, get them to let you hang around while they're setting it up -- it's very educational.

Andres2882 said:

Also, even if my cam isn't degree'd exactly, if I have it in dot-to-dot, can I measure my pushrod length and it'll still be the accurate length when I do have the cam in degreed? Reason I ask is if that will work, I can measure for pushrods, then take the 45 minute one-way drive to buy the dial and wheel and pick up the pushrods in one shot. Let me know if that'll work though. Thanks

Click to expand...

That should work fine.

Use the SHORT pin, you have to tap it in the end of the cam...

When you degree a cam you are checking the specs to make sure they are correct. If you are using a multi keyed timing set you can adjust it in 2 degree increments if needed. Lifter bore centerlines play a major part in the cam correctness, I find most of the cams I have purchased from Ed are within 1 degree on a stock block, you can not adjust for this so they go dot to dot.

...and of course, it's not just the cam that can throw the valve timing off from what's specified on the card. The location of the Woodruff key in the crank, the accuracy of the slots/holes in the timing gears are also at issue. A buddy of mine had to install his FTI cam with the "4A" slot to get the timing where Ed wanted it -- that's why you have to degree. There are many variables in addition to the cam that can be 'off'. You'll want to set yours up so that when you measure .050" lift on the intake lobe with the dial indicator, the pointer is showing 2 degrees BTDC (+/- 1 degree). You HAVE to measure -- or you're just guessing at the cam timing. There is no way around it. It simply doesn't matter what happened in someone else's engine.

Michael Yount said:

...and of course, it's not just the cam that can throw the valve timing off from what's specified on the card. The location of the Woodruff key in the crank, the accuracy of the slots/holes in the timing gears are also at issue. A buddy of mine had to install his FTI cam with the "4A" slot to get the timing where Ed wanted it -- that's why you have to degree. There are many variables in addition to the cam that can be 'off'. You'll want to set yours up so that when you measure .050" lift on the intake lobe with the dial indicator, the pointer is showing 2 degrees BTDC (+/- 1 degree). You HAVE to measure -- or you're just guessing at the cam timing. There is no way around it. It simply doesn't matter what happened in someone else's engine.

Click to expand...

Mike's right, every motor is different, I had to set a AFM cam in the 4A slot once as well, I had to go 2R on a F cam once......EVERY motor can be different.