Comp cams to degree or not to degree

ricardoa1

Registered User
Ok I am making all my efforts to make the Shoot out with the new heads and cam. Take into consideration that I have never degreed a cam before and will waste precious time if I decide to degree the thing.
I need to know should I
a. just throw in the cam blind and hope it ok.
b. or degree the thing to find out it was ok anyways
c. or degree the thing and find out its not within specs and cry and moan for not being able to make the shoot.

How many of you had cams from comp cams and had it not where its supposed to be.
 
It all depends on how the cam was ground.
I have one that came in 2 deg advanced from the ideal 110 ICL.
I had a couple of offset keys machined to take care of it.
I never install a cam without degreeing it in.
But then I'm an obsesive compulsive and everything has to be spot on for me.
For what its worth what little checking I've done I have found them to come from the factory anywhere from 106 to around 112 deg ICL.
Yes theres that much slop allowed in factory tolorances, and when you add up those sloppy tolorances thats why some stock engines of identical kind perform much better than others.;)
 
Ricardo. I'd hate to see anyone have to take these things apart more than they have to. Before I met you at Carlisle, I threw my motor together over a weekend & just dot-2-dot'd it. And hoped for the best. I'm not saying it was a smart idea, but it worked for me & I made Carlisle.

I would always suggest doing it right the first time. In my case, I was willing to do it again if it didn't work. I crossed my fingers and it turned out ok for me.

Good Luck Man! Hope to see you there. I love seeing that car.
Anthony
 
Personaly if it was me Ricardo I would go to the event and have a good time. I learned along time ago that when the pressure is on things go wrong. So go and have fun and save your cam for next year at the meet. If ya know what I mean.;)
 
Mine was way off like 14'. I thought i was doing something stupid untill i had a pro double check it and he said send it back. Comp said they would need a nother cam to re-grind so i lived with it. Spining the cam and crank gear and using a 4' offset crank key i got it right on.
 
Oh definately get it degreed..A regrind can be off as much as 14 degrees..From what I seen..And Tom you need a degree wheel and a multiindex timing chain..Believe Morana sells one
 
Next time someone does this they should take some pictures and write it up. It would be great to have the steps to degreeing the SC motor outlined with pictures. I'm sure there are many people that haven't done it before.
 
The only problemI see with regrinds is that two of the same exact cams even ground on the same year cores can be different..I;d justhateto get my motor together have a problem and go,..Hmm I wonder..
 
yes - degree ur cam
dont make a big mistake
when my motor was built - the cam was not degreed and the builder told me he didnt do so because even if the cam was off -there was no way he could adjust it --as there are no adjustable timing chains available for the sc. That guy was half assed . Ive had nothing but trouble since and i am putting off the inevitable--taking it apart and timing or degreeing the cam and having a timing gear cut with an appropriate key way
speculation suggests that my cam is likely retarded 5-10 deg.
the car has no bottom end power\poor idle\low vacuum
the dyno shows decent hp levels at high rpms and moderate to low torque levels.
any ways what a pain in the arse
G/L
Josh
 
When you purchase a cam.You can ask for a blue printed cam.
When some cam munufactures grind a cam,They will measure
all the cams out of a batch being ground.And make a spec sheet.
Like Damon pointed out,not all the cams come out of the batch
with the same specs.One reason is the ware on the grinding wheel
as the batch of cam are being produced one after another.

So some manufacture ,if you ask them will sell you a cam with the
best specs closer to you needs,out of the batch.For a added cost.

To degree a cam in the tools you need to buy are a degree wheel ,a dial indicator


RANDY
 
If I didn't degree the cam & it seems to run great. May there still be an issue or lost power because of this? And on the other side of the question: May there be an additional power I am getting that I wouldn't if it isn't degreed in?

I'm curious because I dot-2-dot'd it a couple days before Carlisle when I built it & it seems to be running fine. Maybe a pot luck shot. Maybe I'm losing something. That's why I wonder. If there is opportunity for improvement by checking (even though everything is fine), I may consider it tomorrow before I leave for St. Louis. And yes, I know it'll s*ck to spend the day tearing down and rebuilding. But for opportunity, I may have to.

Anthony
 
If it is running well, I wouldn't tear it down. Yeah, there might be a little something left on the table, but is it worth tearing down a whole SC motor over? No, not really. I mean what are you going to do if it isn't perfect anyway? At this point just drive it and enjoy it.

John
 
could be loss of power, if it is way off. I think it will mainly change the design of the cam. If you wanted hp from 3000-5000 it may change it to 3500-5500 or vice versa which could throw off your whole combo.
 
Yes, there is the advancing and retarding the cam portion of degreeing the cam, but another part that is more important is to check the valve timing events to make sure that they occur at the correct times. I have had cams before that were plus or minus one degree on 3 out of 4, but were like 5 degrees off on the last event. Things like that will definitely change the characteristics of a camshaft.

John
 
Mike8675309 said:
Next time someone does this they should take some pictures and write it up. It would be great to have the steps to degreeing the SC motor outlined with pictures. I'm sure there are many people that haven't done it before.

Mike last time I checked Comp Cams site they had an instructional section that dealt with this topic. The guy's may want to swing through that and take a look.
In fact when I received my new cam there was an instructional pamplet in the box telling you how to do it. :)

EDIT: I forgot they also included 2 big stickers as well. They look to be worth about 10 extra HP if both are installed. LOL!!!!:p
 
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