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Cam & Degreeing write up

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21K views 37 replies 14 participants last post by  MikeJones  
#1 · (Edited)
Due to request from a few people around here and in hopes to help out other people ive decided to write a cam install guide for you guys including degreeing. Considering I don’t have any pics of the install im not going to get everything down to details for example im not going to tell you where specific bolts are (unless theyre hard to find ones) and how to remove your intake, fuel rails etc. Not to be mean but chances are if you have trouble doing those things w/o guidance this install might not be the best thing to try. Also some stuff is not required (such as removing injectors) but it makes the install go smoother since less stuff will be in your way.

Bear with me if theres more spacing than needed between paragraphs and little stuff like that. I wrote it up in word and copy/pasted it over to the forums.

What youll need:
Basic metric socket set
Ratchet – air ratchet if you want to make life easier
OTC 7928 valve spring tool (not absolutely needed but makes life lots easier)
ft lbs torque wrench
in lbs torque wrench
1 qt of oil
oil filter + __ quarts of oil that you car takes
fairly big around Phillips screw driver
puller for the crank pulley, you want one that bolts to the pulley, not one with the jaws that grab the edges
metal coat hanger
bright colored nail polish, sharpie, or an automatic punch
paper towels
carb. Cleaner – I like to use the supertech stuff from walmart its cheap (1.97) and works
large set of channel locks, c-clamp, or vice
2 new cam gear bolts
1 new crank pulley bolt
given that your new cam uses 12mm bolts the above 3 bolts are the same
front cover and valve cover gaskets (not absolutely needed but recommended)
fuel line disconnect tool
10mm ratchet wrench
cam degree kit (includes a degree wheel,tdc stop,and dial indicator)
dial indicator extension
chiltons or similar for torque sequences/specs
brake fluid (if you decide to remove the master cylinder to degree)

If you have a Windsor engine youll need cam gears, cam gear bolts, cam gear washers, and cam gear spacers as well.

First things first remove everything that would hinder your access, or make access to your valve covers more difficult. You want to remove your intake and then unplug all of your coils and injectors. Youll also need to unplug your ac compressor and another big square black plug (sits under your filter housing on factory intake), and coolant sensor. After this is all unplugged take the harness and lay it towards the back of the engine by the hood. Now remove the following things

1. Upper radiator hose
2. Water pump pulley
3. Belt
4. Spark plugs

Look at your front cover a bit to the left (facing the engine) of 12 o’clock and youll see two little rectangles with ends that look like arrows. Note the one that says TDC. Now turn your crank using the crank pulley bolt and a ratchet/socket and watch the back edge of the pulley closest to the front cover. At one point you will see the pulley has a notch cut in it. You want to turn the crank until the notch on the pulley lines up with the TDC mark. Now turn the crank 45* counter clockwise. This makes it to where all the pistons are below the engine deck and will not be hit by the valves. Now you can remove the crank pulley bolt and crank pulley.

Go under the car on the driver side and find the power steering pump there will be 3 10 mm bolts holding it on. There is one bolt that will hit the power steering line if you try to take it out so save that one for last. Remove the other two bolts and then using the 10mm ratchet wrench start to loosen the last bolt, as the bolt loosens allow the power steering pump to “fall with it” this allows for the bolt to back out but not hit the line. When it comes time to reinstall, this will be the first bolt you want to put in, then the other two.

Take out the two screw/bolts holding the power steering reservoir in place and push it to the side, now remove the power steering reservoir bracket from the front cover and push it aisde as well. You can now unplug the cam gear sensor on the driver side and get that harness pushed over to the side.

Finally onto the fun part. Remove the valve covers. They wont just slip right off, you have to wiggle them around and try wiggling them out different ways. The best way I have found to do it is pull up on the front of the cover and at the same time twist and push it towards the opposite side of the car. After your valve covers are off remove the front cover bolts. There should be 15 on the front cover I put dots next to them in the pic below. There is a bolt on the pass side that might be hidden by an ider pulley which youll need to remove, its nothing but one bolt and it comes right off. Once those are removed look under the car and remove the 4 bolts on the front of the oil pan, they run through the oil pan and up into the front cover. The front cover will now slip right off, it may take some wiggling since the gaskets have little dots of silicone in certain places but nothing too major, if youre having to pry it off chances are you missed a bolt. There should be 19 total. After you take it off the little trigger wheel will be sitting on the crank, just put a dot on it or something to denote which side faces the front of the car and slip it off.




Now take the carb cleaner and clean off the cam gears, chains, and sprocket/gear on the crank. Let them dry or wipe them with paper towels. Using your nail polish or sharpie make a mark on chain and cam gear on the left, chain and cam gear on the right, and then mark both chains and crank sprocket all in the same place your best bet is to do the crank sprocket & chains from under the car. Or if you have an automatic punch punch some dots in the gears and chain links. Theres a pic below in which you can see the nail polish on the gerars and chains for an example. (theyre not line up bc this was after I had everything timed and degreed)
Using the otc 7928 or whatever method you decide to use remove the rockers from each side. Try to lay them out on a piece of card board and on the cardboard write front, and the numbers 1-8. Then lay the rockers on the cardboard accordingly. Do this for each side.


There is no need to remove the intake manifold. It is simply removed in this picture because I had pulled the heads and didnt put the manifold back on quite yet.


Now remove the chain tensioners by removing the two 10mm bolts holding them on. They may fall/slip right out or they may get wedged between the block and guides. If they seem to be wedged open up the channel locks and put one jaw on the bottom of the tensioner and one jaw on the piston sticking out and squeeze it together and while keeping it squeezed pull the tensioner out. If it doesn’t want to go in when you squeeze, try to squeeze the pliers, let up on them, squeeze again, and repeat sometimes they’ll have oil in them and wont want to compress doing the mentioned forces the oil out. Then take the guide and chain off. Its best to start with the passenger side since the chain is in front of the driver side one. Be sure to mark the guides left/right, driver/passenger, whatever works best for you. They almost look the same by theyre not. Then remove the chain. Do this for both sides.

After doing this for each side remove the cam griddles/caps (griddles if you have a romeo, caps if you have a windsor). Once again keep these straight/organized per side, or per tower it goes on if you have a windsor. The cams will then lift right out the heads. Remove the cam gear bolts and throw them away. These bolts may be kind of hard to get off by hand since theyre torqued pretty good. The way I did mine was hold the cam in one hand with a towel wrapped around it (lobes are sharp so be careful) and used an impact in the other hand.

Move your spacer, cam gear and washer over to your new cam and then get your new bolt on there fairly snug, youll torque the bolt later. Lube the cam towers which are the things the cam lays in on the heads with some oil, next lube the whole cam up real well with some oil and lay it in the head, now lube your griddles/caps and put them back on torquing in sequence/spec. After that is done turn the cam by hand, there will probably be a bit of resistance but it should turn pretty freely and not lock up or anything. Do this for both sides. Now holding the cams in place using a wrench on the spots made for this/machined on the cam torque the gear bolts to spec.

Now onto the timing. I understand this very clearly in my head but may have some trouble typing it out so bear with me.

1. Take that coat hanger you were probably thinking wtf is this for up in the parts list and cut off a small chunk of it 4-5” or so and bend the end/tip to a 90* angle so you can pull on it when it has force on the other end.

2. Take the channel locks, c-clamp, or vice and put it on the top of the piston on the tensioner and on the bottom of it. ONLY GET IT ON THE TOP OF THE PISTON. Do not put it on the little part next to the piston or you wont be going anywhere. Now compress the piston into the tensioner as far as it will go.

3. Keeping the piston held into the tensioner stick a tip of the coat hanger in the hole to the top right of the piston area on the tensioner as far as you can, youll notice it wont go too far, now push the hanger over to the right, youll feel that it pushes on something in there. That is what stops the part that sticks up with the piston from collapsing down. Push that little stop over to the right and while doing so press the part that pops up with the piston back into the tensioner. Then put the coat hanger in the small hole on the bottom right to stop the piston from popping back up and release your channel locks or whatever tool you decided to use.

Here is a pic of where the coat hanger should go (where the paper clip is) and the hole w/ the thing you need to depress for the other part to slip down into the tensioner is in the hole right above it at about the 11 o’ clock position to the bolt hole.




4.Put the chain on the crank sprocket first with the link aligned where it needs to be, Next wrap the chain around the cam gear where it needs to be but heres the catch. You just cant simply line up the dots and put the tenesioners in. Youll notice that one chain guide is stationary and one swings. After you put the chain around the crank sprocket pull the side of the chain that will be running on the stationary guide tight, wrap it around the cam gear and then wiggle your cam to adjust the marks. What im trying to say here is that all of the slack in the chain must be on the tensioner side, not the side with the stationary guide. Next put the swinging guide in place, put the tensioner in place (with the piston still being held in by the hanger) and install the two 10mm bolts. Torque the 10mm bolts to spec and pull the coat hanger out of the hole and the tensioner will snap back into position. Do this for both sides.

After that is done oil and reinstall the rockers and turn the motor over by hand by threading the crank pulley bolt into the end of the crank and using a socket/ratchet to turn it. It should turn over very easily and smooth. If it stops all of the sudden or gives you any weird resistance youre going to have to take the chains back off and repeat. If it turns smoothly (id give it atleast 5 full rotations) w/o any interference youre good to go…move onto degreeing.

Youll need to make a small plate out of steel which you can bolt to the head using the valve cover bolt holes and some small bolts that will thread into the valve cover bolt holes w/o bottoming out. For example if you try to use the valve cover bolts to hold your plate in place they’ll bottom out before they hold the plate in place. This is needed bc the dial indicator has a magnetic base which will not stick to the aluminum heads.

Take the degree wheel and bolt it onto the end of the crank using the old crank bolt

1. Put a TDC piston stop in cylinder #1 (the one that comes with the summit cam degree kit will not work, I ordered the kit not knowing this and had to order a crane one which worked perfect). Cut a piece of coat hanger and bend a loop on one end of it. Find a stationary bolt such as one used for the front cover and bolt the hanger to it. Bend the hanger as needed to point to 0 on your degree wheel. For getting the best results with the dial indicator you have a few options. You can make your own solid lifter by getting an oem lifter for $8 and tack welding it in place so it cant compress, buy one from mmr for around $40 plus shipping, or fully bleed one of your oem ones with a vice or cclamp. Then use that lifter to the needed intake valve when degreeing.

2. Turn the crank to the left until it stops and record the number that your pointer is pointing to on the degree wheel, we’ll say its 112. Now turn the crank to the right. We’ll say it stops at 116. Now take the difference between the two numbers (4) and divide by 2 (2). Turn the crank to where your pointer is pointing at two degrees towards the side with the bigger number (in this case the right) and push your pointer to where it is back at 0 degrees and try again. You want to get an equal number on each side. If you turn it to the right and it stops at 114 and then turn it to the left and it stops at 114 youre good to go. Turn it back to 0 and remove the tdc stop

3. Set your dial indicator with the tip of it resting on the cylinder #1 intake valve retainer. You want the dial indicator “stick” to be as parallel with the valve as you can make it. Turn the crank until you reach .050” before max lift. The easiest way to do this is find max lift by rotating the crank by hand, there will be a point where the dial indicator stops moving for a very small roation of the crank, and then it starts to move again. That’s max lift. After finding max lift look at the measurement on your dial indicator, subtract .050” and then rotate the crank more until you reach that measurement. After doing so look at your degree wheel and record the number that your pointer is pointing to we’ll say its 118.

4. With your crank still in position to where your cam is reading max lift continue to very slowly turn the crank until the dial indicator moves again. Move it .050” past max lift and once again record the number on your degree wheel. We’ll say its 110.

5. Add both of the above numbers above and divide by 2 (118+110)/(2) = 114. That number is your intake center line. You want that number to match the intake centerline spec on the cam card/cam specs. If it matches youre good to go for the pass side.

6. To do the driver side it gives you more room if you remove the master cylinder, its only 2 bolts and then the flare nuts at the end of the lines. Between removing,installing,and bleeding it takes an extra 10min or so and gives you a lot more room.

7. No need to find TDC again place the dial indicator on the cylinder #6 intake valve and repeat the process above. If the intake center line you get matches the cam card/specs once again youre good to go. If not here is how you can adjust it.

Pull off your cam gear and file/grind the slot in the cam gear that slips over the keway on the cam to allow for the adjustments you need, and try again until the intake centerline matches the cam card/specs. The force of the cam gear bolt is what holds the gear in place so don’t worry about it not staying in place after making the slot bigger. Youll also need a new cam gear bolt since theyre TTY/one time use.

Put everything back together torquing to spec/sequence and lastly change the oil/filter. Personally what I like to do is change the oil/filter when finished with some valvoline dino or whatever your favorite cheap oil is. Run it for a bit, then change again with whatever oil you decide to use. Reason being dirt and junk like that might fall into the oil pan and heads when you have the front cover & valve covers off, and even if it doesn’t its better to be safe than sorry. For those of you that removed the master cylinder to bleed it youll see two barbs on the side of it facing the drivers side. Stuff a big beach towel or something under them so fluid doesn’t go all over your car. Have someone get in the car and hold down the brakes. Open up the first barb closest to the firewall and close it, then open the second one up and close it, check the fluid/add if needed. Have them pump the brakes a few times and repeat the process until you get a nice flow of fluid out of the master cylinder.

Sorry for the lack of pics. I dont have very many from when I did mine, although the pic of the gears/chains marked with nail polish is mine. Dolbs said he will be sending me some from his install which I will edit into this where theyre needed.
 
#2 ·
damn bro... nice write up. LOL... did you do it? I wish this was here beforehand.
 
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#3 ·
Yea, Ive been working on it for the last few hours. Ive thought about doing it for awhile but didnt want to take the time to do it and have it not get stickied or it just get buried in bs and not be of any use. Then earlier moose suggested I do it so here you have it :D.
 
#9 ·
Im gonna say windsor, but the best way to find out is to count the valve cover bolts 13/14 is a windsor and 11 is a romeo.
 
#13 · (Edited)
That would be nice. It would save time of having to go back and find old posts to copy paste info or having to retype the same thing a few x a week. Maybe we need a poll...sticky or no sticky hah. Im surprised im still on here typing after all that. Gonna wake up tomorrow with crooked fingers n stuff prolly.
 
#16 ·
Sticky means a gear install write up is next :yes

lol im sure my grammar is a bit backwards in some parts too but oh well...im sure as most of you have found out anyways it seems like I think one thing but type the other so it comes out all backwards and I have to go back and edit.
 
#20 ·
if the good ole 400mhz dinosar fires up word itll be well on its way here in a few, shouldnt take me too long since I can copy/paste a few chunks of it out of one of my old posts if I can find it
 
#21 ·
very nice mang that would be very helpful cuz im doin gears this summer
 
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#22 ·
alright, im workin on it as i speak, prolly wont be typing much here until its done. this super computer from 10 years ago has issues doing two things at once lol
 
#26 ·
very nice it will help a lot of people, I just dont see the need to remove the intake it really does not get in the way.
 
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#27 ·
I wanted to add a little caption or something to the picture but didnt see where to fit it in. When I referred to removing the intake at the very beginning I was talking about the cai/air intake/whatever people would like to call it. In the second picture the intake mainfold is removed because I had pulled the heads.

Ill figure something out for a caption type thing and edit it in.
 
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