if the motor is stock and your putting the stock cam or new stock cam then that would be the least of my worries. i have friends degree hp cams and they always come out on specs, meaning they dont have to do anything to them. the cam grinders are pretty accurate with them. if you happen to know someone that knows how to do it and has the tools , then great, if not then dont loose any sleep over it.

 

the comp cams instruction sheet says that it is not absolutly necessary to degree their cams for street applications

 

dont always listen to writen out instructions. a lot of us are builders and know what we're talking about. you need to degree any cam. its part of building an engine. no questions asked.

 

allways read the instructions!and toastintx if you unsure just ask they guys @ the machine shop that done the work on block for you or if you have someone you know thats built motors before see if they would mind helping its not rocket science just be sure and go slow if you've never built one before. if i were closer i,d be more than glad to help
good luck and happy driving

 

Let's assume you have set yourcam centerline set correctly. Advancing and retarding the cam only moves the power band up or down in the rpm band. If you don't believe me, plug try playing with a dyno program.

The trick is setting the centerline correctly. RGMotor is right about checkingthe centerline using several cylinders because many times the lobe will be slightly different. Great engine builders blue print all cylinders, goodbuilder blue print some, many blue print #1. This is bad practice because what happens if #1 is off by several degrees but the others are on? If you set up for #1 it will be optimized but your other 7 will suffer. It is best to take an average and your motor will perform better and more consistantly across all cylinders. As for timing sets, you should get a decent adjustable timing set if you are in to degreeing an optimizing your cam. Otherwise, you are just making coarse adjustments.

 

you guys overthink situations way too often.

if your building a street car just put the goddamn thing in there unless you happen to already have a degree wheel or someone you know has one you can borrow.

my shop built oem replacement motors all day long and i ground cams for many of those motors. did we use a degree wheel for any of those motors? does any other major engine remanufacturer? hell f*ck no.

when we built a race motor for the circle track did we degree the cam? hell f*ck yes.

/thread

 

thats mainly what we build. check the link in my sig
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Same here, I build circle track and road race motors. All the blocks fresh from ford racing so thats why i only check 3 cylinders, on a junkyard block check em all, if its a race block your reusing that has already been fully degreed and your just swappinga cam, i just find tdc, run up the tappets on #1 and if its good to go I do nothing else.

 

as i said before ^ but i'd like to ask a question to some as to how your going to degree to cam without moving it to advance or retard? lol just wondering maybe i'm misunder standing them and there way of thinkin maybe i,vebeen doing it wrong for the past 27 years

 

degreeing is just checking to make sure the camshaft is what the cam manufacturer says it is, you then take what you have observed by degreeing it to make the decision how much to advance or retard if it needs it. In racing sometimes we will retard the cam or advance it even if it degrees perfectly because doing this can give you a little more top end or bottom end, but most of the time a cam will check out and you just leave it straight up. Degreeing is just assuring what you have nothing else but taking measurements.