Secret Truth to Degreeing Your Camshaft: Dot to Dot isn’t Good Enough!!  

Glad to see you’re getting up to speed with this…good luck Joe!

Thank you sir. Providing the rationale behind it all is much appreciated to make the job less intimidating. Well done!

Thanks Joe! You are the only one I've seen that took the time to show different set-ups. That's a lot of work to help us understand.

That was a great informational video! Made me realize why I lost so much bottom end after a timing chain swap on a 360 a few years ago. I guess I never realized it could be such a drastic change!

Good job Joe. Great comparison. Shows the "Importance" of a correctly degreed cam. Thanks for sharing. Take care, Ed.

I swapped from a cheap double roller to a good Billet timing set and it made a huge difference in my timing. I will never go cheap again on timing sets. Great video.

Thank you Joe . Very very informative and wow what a difference in degrees between those 2 sets !! 😮😮

Very good detail, sir. Something new to learn everyday. When I replace a timing chain set, I always check that the dots on both the cam and crank sprockets line up correctly. The dot on the camshaft sprocket should be at six o'clock, and the crankshaft sprocket should be at twelve o'clock. This should also apply to GMs and Fords.

Very informative, thanks Joe

Cool on showing the differences between the two timing sets !

Excellent explanation as usual Joe! Keep 'em coming 🏁

Great video Joe. Very good information.

Very informative cam degreeing is like voodoo to me

Every detail matters

Good video Joe, very informative!!! Thank you!!!

Good info man, Hope you guys made it through the storms ok...

that was a good demo...thank you

Hey Joe, that was really cool. It always kind of offended me when people called me a grease monkey when I told them I was a mechanic. They just don't know how complex the trade really is. They are the same people who couldn't even change a tire at the side of the road or even locate the dip stick to check the oil in the engine.😢

I struggled with this one as a young man putting my cars together in the yesteryear of not having a ton of good tools to work with except for the dial indicator. I would be happy to get some help from the one neighbor who had a old degree wheel and I would get help from him and he would get me in to the point where I could drive it every day and on Friday night I would adjust the valves to get the power and then on Sunday morning and would readjust them to drive it to work and make sure they were good after the 5,500 honseing it would get Friday and Saturday night. Great day to you JMJ. Enjoyable video as always.

Great video, Thanks. Subscribed !!

Excellent video!!!!!

Great video!

There is a lot to engine building Joe 👍

Nice comparison. It's been a while since I did all that. I wonder how one of those old factory gear sets with the plastic teeth would do?

I think it's called Veritable timing, you can change it with the computer, by changing when it fires, thanks for sharing, all the best to you and your loved ones

I had an engine that went for years being mis diagnosed and given to me as a hopeless case. After checking the new Moroso timing set , dot to dot. the cam was advanced 18* ! the engine would idle okay ish but pop and fall on its face if you tried to drive it. The Lower cogs keyway was what was off. I always degree my cams.

It's good idea to leave the engine at TDC and test fit the timing chain cover to make sure the timing marks are correct.

My trickflows came in and i'm almost ready to put my 318 together.. i was gonna be lazy and not degree... i will be now though..

"They" say fire, fuel, and air is all you need to get an engine to run, but if you are out of time, it'll either run poorly, or snot and snort. Suck, bang, blow has to happen in order lol

As a retired tech, I can say, "Give me a cam -in -block design, any day". OHC iz azzho

I have this 361 bb old timer. Going to put Big Heads to it. Maybe some huge cam allso

I always preach to degree EVERY cam whether performance or stock replacement. We did a solid .528 MP years ago with a Cloyes chain. Was 8° retarded! Then I saw on a forum where people were bashing the cam's performance...hmmmm

I noticed when you rotated the crankshaft Counter clockwise you stopped at .050 according to all the training I had you go past .050 then turn clockwise and stop at .050 this removes any possible slack in the chain or gear lash on a gear drive

On a general build stock cam, stock gears, stock pistons dot to dot will usually be in the ball park, any performance motor needs to be degree'd, personally I degree every camshaft I install.

That seems like more than stacked tolerances. Its like the cam got indexed wrong when ground? Hard to believe two timing sets both come up with ICL so far off.

Hope everything is OK after the tornado Joe.

I would love to see a dyno test I'm pretty sure that makes a difference

Those new fangled cam phasers started out a good 25 maybe 30 now. They are prone to noise, lack of adjustment and failure if the oll lets dirt get into them, lack of lubricant, and bad or broken springs will give you a bad engine in a instant. Granted they come a long way from the beginning they still , bu😂wt routine maintenance and good oil changes and premium filter still have to be followed along with the replacement schedule on the chains, guides and replacement parts in the kit. Maybe a video might on the list for him in the slower season after the Drags in the spring season. Great day today and enjoy your morning, freezing here, 32°F and windy at 20-30.

Hey Mopar Joe,.....Thx for another Helpful video.....Got a question 'bout your camshaft Install Lobe Centerline method & need a little clarification if you will.....After your Lobe Peak lift dial Indicator zero up, & you turn Clockwise to Drop 0.050" & Record Degree wheel #, Why do you Reverse direction & turn Opposite (CCW) go Back thru peak 0.00" & Continue CCW direction to Drop 0.050" again ? .....Seems that would Split the Timing chain Slack error + provide the Averaged corrected Lobe ICL position Degree position..Seems that Would be correct if the Crank Actually did Reverse directions when running but it don't. Why not Continue rotating Crank Clockwise & come up on the other side of Peak at the 0.050" point & Record Wheel Degree #, do the math thing & Record the Actual measured Lobe Centerline the Way the engine actually uses the Chain Slack ?? .....Keeping a wrench on the Camshaft bolt & slightly pulling CCW would insure All the Chain Slack is Out (like the engine does) during the rotation process.....I could be really messed up on this thinking & is why I'm asking.....Thx,.....tom..

Good lesson Joe. Many popular "off the shelf" cams from Comp & others will grind in an extra 4 degrees ADVANCE for those who insist on just "dot to dot." Because,for a mild compression engine (10:00 & below) Advancing the cam can never hurt. I lived this stuff "back in the day" round track racing & on Mopars i've used Engles,Howards & even old Racer Brown grinds. A good rule is...a street motor never responds favorably to RETARDING the cam.

Cool.

Always, always, ALWAYS degree the cam! I've had to retard some by five degrees and advance others by four to get them right. Thanks for sharing, Fellow Hotrodder!

Have you done a video for gear drive and are they better.

Great video Joe, but at 2:33 I'm reading 68 degrees instead of 63 as you said. Same at 7:49, 168 instead of 163? Anyway, maybe I'm wrong but I'd figure to point it out to you.

Those mopar purple shaft cams are pretty much 108 center line a lot of people go with that ,but pat musi likes the 112-114 my cousin has a 68 Camaro SS he went with a comp cam we told them the engine specs 4 -speed 3.31 gears how tall the rear tire was and he let comp cams pick out the cam it sucked lol ,we put a old school 327/350 hp cam in it and it now performs ,crower cams don't go with a 108 there 112-114 Center line ,all of the edelbrock cams are 112-114 and the edelbrock pat musi rolling thunder series cams are 112- 114 centerline

Had a DC 474 cam that was 20 deg off dot to dot. Best I could get was 4 deg. retarded using an offset key for the crank and one for the cam. It was a 360, 8-1, running a 4sp. If I hadn't degreed the cam, it would have been a total dog and I would have probably spent a ton of money on other parts not knowing why it was lame. Now, I NEVER install a cam without a degree wheel.

I haven't seen your checking TDC video, but I'll guess you didn't match mark the inside hub to the outside ring. AFTER you've confirmed your dampener/timing cover marks are correct, I highly recommend you take less than 5mins and put a couple of little punch marks lining up the current orientation of outer ring to inner hub for the future. If for some reason the outer ring slips vs the inner hub, you will easily be able to visually tell, and you won't have to reinvent the wheel to figure out what happened.

Joe I have a question for you man. I just put this 440 together, after the machine shop did the bottom end. It runs good, but I have a little bit of a clatter that sounds like bottom end. Only at idle, and letting off of throttle at low speed. I've already checked things like flexplate bolts etc...any idea what iy could be, or should I even worry about it? Thanks...

So say you’re dot to dot and still not matching the card. What’s the next step?

Are you going to be able to move the came where you want it or do you have to live with cam being off 2 degrees?

I'm going through a rough spot at the moment, so pls excuse me for not being able to contain myself for the cam being retarded 😅 Every laugh helps.

not degreeing the Purple shaft cam , made my engine very sluggish years back,It sounded really powerful, we went dot to dot and not until 3,000 rpm did it start to pull. the 284/484 cam. zero knowledge available in 1980s. i do not think Direct connection told you to advance by 4 degrees

So one day in a drunken stupor, I decided to put the new timing set on the Ford Torino with a 302 2 barrel carb. I had bought a Edelbrock timing set so you already know it's got a lot of slop. Well it was Dark 🕶️ on a Saturday night and I thought the marks were aligned, well I'll cut to the chase, how many degrees is one tooth advance? 😆 I didn't use a degree wheel .

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You checked one lobe , ive seen some crap ground cams , that are nowhere near the same in lft and duration

Is that you mopar joe

I will assume the LSA on the camshaft is 110 am I correct

What book were you reading from in the 1st 5 min?

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Brilliant video. The one I've seen that simply explains what happens if your cam is too far advanced or retarded.

It is off regardless of the dot unless it is a grocery getter.😊

To work out how many degrees 1 tooth makes just count the teeth on the gear and divide 360(degrees) by the tooth count, eg 360* ÷ 20(teeth on crank gear) = 18* per tooth. Typically a worn(not stretched or the chain pitch changes and everything goes south immediatly) chain will jump the crank gear 1st as its smaller diameter gives more clearance per tooth as compared to the larger cam gear. If a chain jumps 1 tooth in operation its kind of pointless worrying how many degrees this retards the cam by because that chain is going to jump another tooth in very short order and that engine is not going to be running for long!

I had done a quick reference check similar to this last year when I replaced the timing chain in my 1995 4.0 litre jeep engine, Now mind you, I wasn't using a degree wheel , or a piston stop or anything, I was just replacing the timing chain and some seals and gaskets to freshen up the engine a bit Using the timing marks on the timing chain cover and the timing mark on the harmonic damper I was able to determine that the cam timing was running right around 10 . degrees retarded due to the amount of stretching and slack that the timing chain had , the engine had around 250,000 miles on it with its original timing chain and gears, and the timing chain was stretched out to the point that it was just starting to make light grooving on the rubbing block inside the timing chain cover . I did not measure the exact amount of stretching in the timing chain and compare it to the new, but after seeing your video here today, I kinda wish that I would have measured it just for curiosity purposes. Thank you for your videos Joe, Keep up the great work. Tim from Wisconsin.

I think that chain may even be too tight.

🤯 I just would like my 383 to idle.

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Hurry up and get that motor built and do some paint and body so I can clown you🤣🤣

Theres no secret, just check the intake closing time.. See if its close to the card specs.. Its not like you can change the came, just its relationship to crank.. Its all basic stuff...

It was 68 not 63. You can’t change it anyway it has three bolts and a dowel. Also once you do cam break in the chain will stretch somewhat and you will lose ( retard ) timing hence the ol gear drive system.

Close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades lol, never install a new set without degreeing it.

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Easiest explanation , other videos would have my eyes rolling or mouth yawning.

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What