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so i was doing a cam swap on my ls6 the other day and first thing i did was have the cyl1 at tdc on the compression stroke. cyl 1 being the drivers side front cyl. when i took the timing cover off i noticed that the notch on the cam sprocket was literally at the 12 oclock position and not at 6 with the lower sprocket notch lined up as it should. no matter how many times i turned it over same result. so i did the swap and put the new cam in the same location. notch at 12 oclock. i have a feeling that this is wrong and do not want to hurt my motor and reply is very helpfull. what do i do?!?!
It's exactly right.......what did you assume? 6 o'clock? At 6 o'clock number 6 is at tdc compression stroke. To add to your confusion you could have installed it at 6 o'clock and it would work and run just the same..................I know yer completely insane now and need meds .
Last edited by RockinWs6; Mar 23, 2015 at 09:45 PM.
well the thing that bothers me is that in all the books and stuff ive read about the swaps is that the ticks on the 2 cam chain gears are supposed to line up like so
so the real question is am i right in the way i first installed it (first pic) as i cannot see the dot on the crank gear but only the cam gear at 12 oclock
Notice the cam gear is twice as big? That means it turns at half the speed. Another way of saying the crank turns twice for every one turn of the cam.
Put your crank bolt on and see for yourself. Turn the motor with a ratchet two full crank revolutions. You'll see it the dot on the cam lines up at the top or bottom of the sprocket when the dot on the crank is at the top. It'll alternate between top and bottom on the cam.
When you install the new cam, line the cam up on the bottom so it's easier to tell they are lined up good
You have the cover off I assume....turn the crank until both dots line up on the bottom and you will see you are on number 6 compression stroke TDC. You are fine.
Just don't try to set up the valve train or measure pushrods at cylinder #1 if the cam dot is at 6 o'clock. As stated previously, that is firing TDC for #6.
What you did is correct, figure out the firing TDC for cylinder #1 not using the timing marks. Since you have a hex adjust, are you going to degree the cam?
this was more important back in the day of distributors. Now with cam sensors the computer knows when to fire the plug. A lot of motors back in the day were attempted to start with the distributor 180 degrees off because of this.
this was more important back in the day of distributors. Now with cam sensors the computer knows when to fire the plug. A lot of motors back in the day were attempted to start with the distributor 180 degrees off because of this.
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cam swap timing help :( 
