Degree a cam

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May 18, 2005 | 07:24 PM

RK2K2WS6

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Degree a cam

Im about to do heads/cam setup on my car and was going to degree the cam but now am thinking otherwise. Does anyone have expeirence with this, is this a must do or should I not worry about it.

May 18, 2005 | 07:27 PM

jrp

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this months GMHTP has a degree walkthrough with the ls1. otherwise you can find a plethora of sites on how to degree a cam by googling. i got my comp degree kit from summit.

May 18, 2005 | 07:48 PM

RK2K2WS6

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Do you have to have the timming chain they showed

May 18, 2005 | 07:55 PM

jrp

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Quote:

Originally Posted by RK2K2WS6

Do you have to have the timming chain they showed

dont remember off hand which one it was; the rollmaster double or comp's single but you'll need either one if you want to adj. the timing.

May 18, 2005 | 08:03 PM

smask04C5

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crane makes a nice dual billet chain set #144984

May 19, 2005 | 06:57 AM

Byter

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Quote:

Originally Posted by RK2K2WS6

Im about to do heads/cam setup on my car and was going to degree the cam but now am thinking otherwise. Does anyone have expeirence with this, is this a must do or should I not worry about it.

IMHO it's worth degreeing the cam. Doing so verifies that the cam matches your cam card and what you think the cams specs should be. It verifies that you lined the timing gear up dot-to-dot. And, if you have performance problems later on, you know that it isn't because the cam is a couple of degrees off. Granted, with a non-adjustable timing gear there isn't much you can do but, it's worth the education in using the tools and for the piece of mind in knowing all your components are what they should be. When I did my H/C, I measured everything: Deck clearance, PTV clearance, degreed the cam, timing chaing slack, preload. Just my 2 cents...

May 19, 2005 | 07:40 AM

777

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why would you need to degree it if you install dot-to-dot

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May 19, 2005 | 11:12 AM

777

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most gas stations and stuff have them iirc...if not try and checking wal-mart

May 19, 2005 | 12:42 PM

#10

Byter

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 777

why would you need to degree it if you install dot-to-dot

What if they put the wrong cam in the box and it had a lot more lift than you expected. Is it worth trashing your engine for half a day's worth of degreeing? Maybe I'm paranoid...

May 19, 2005 | 12:50 PM

#11

white_ta

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Byter

What if they put the wrong cam in the box and it had a lot more lift than you expected. Is it worth trashing your engine for half a day's worth of degreeing? Maybe I'm paranoid...

Yea, they ended up sending me a cam with a little more duration and lift, but I decided to keep it anyways, because it wasn't that much difference, and I had thought about ordering this one anyways. But didn't know this until we were degreeing it in and checking everything, so yes it's a good idea.

May 19, 2005 | 01:30 PM

#12

ArKay99

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 777

why would you need to degree it if you install dot-to-dot

Also, if you degree the cam and use an adjustable timing set you can get the ICL to be what it actually SHOULD be. There are a LOT of things that cause the ICL to be off from what you might expect it to be. There is timing chain slop, bearing clearances from both manufacturing and wear, lifter and rocker arm wear, etc.. The tolerances all add up. I had a cam with a 112LSA and + 2 ground into it and installed it dot to dot. Then I decided to install it straight up, meaning I had to retard it by 2 degrees. I used a Cloyes Hex adjust and found that instead of the cam ICL being at 110 it was actually at 108.5. It was 1.5 degrees out. So when I put it in at 112 I was actually retarding it 3.5 degrees, not 2 as you might expect. It has proved to be a BIG difference in top end power. I'll be dynoing in a couple of weeks and will have some numbers to report then. I was at 413rwhp, SOTP says I picked up more. How much? We'll see...

May 19, 2005 | 01:40 PM

#13

777

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Byter

What if they put the wrong cam in the box and it had a lot more lift than you expected. Is it worth trashing your engine for half a day's worth of degreeing? Maybe I'm paranoid...

then i guess they would buy me a new engine...

however i see the point now...