Why do you degree a cam.

[Kevin71]

Why do you degree a cam.  When would you want to.  Why not just straight up.  I have never installed one and looking at changing the one I have. 

[Chryco Psycho]

I would neverinstall a cam without degreeing it in , the cam is designed to run in a certain phase with the crankshaft , advancing a cam will enhance low end power & retarding with enhance high rpm power , the problem comes in where the cam or chain is made incorrectly , usually the dowel pin is not positioned exactly right or the keyway slot or hole in the cam gear are off , I have seen cams installed without degreeing that were 11* off so the engine ran like crap , that is similar to having the timing chain jump one tooth , the dots were lined up correctly but the cam was running way off so hard starting , no power etc . I usually buy the JP Performance timing chains , billet gears with 9 positions so it is easy to correct the cam position , I also always use the 3 bolt gears & order the cams accordingly as they are stronger .

[Kevin71]

Thanks. I guess I am not the only one wandering.  There has been 111 people that have read the post.  I thought I was the only dummy in the room.  I don't feel so loney anymore. lol.

[RzeroB]

  Same reason as to why you check true TDC at the piston versus "trusting" that the timing marks on the harmonic balancer and timing chain cover are correct. For some odd reason when it comes to this stuff, I think of Ronnie Reagan and his attitude towards the Soviets concerning the nuclear arms reduction treaty - Ronnie said "trust but verify" - that same "trust but verify" principle applies to engine building too.

[cwestra]

Certainly there are cases out there where the cam was built incorrectly resulting in wrong valve timing, but I would imagine the odds of that happening are still pretty low, right?

[HP2]

It is possible that any machined component can drift in specs. I've found most of the components I've used are off a little bit. It isn't the single piece that's a problem but usually it is the stack up of tolerances of all the components between the crank phasing, cam phasing, upper timing gear, lower timing gear, woodruff key or bushing, and the timing chain. if all of those are off only 1 degree, then your cam can be off 6 degrees from spec. Combine that with the 4* advance many grinders put into the cams and suddenly your ten degrees off from where you thought you should be.

The precision of knowing how all these pieces interact can also allow you to build an engine with much higher compression that will still live on pump gas. Simply installing all the pieces without verification could mean if things are off, your 9:1 engine has detonation problems that someone else's engine won't experience at 11:1 because they have all the pieces working together. Step things up two compression points and maximize their interaction and you can easily produce more usable horsepower then the guys simply bolting things together.

[RzeroB]

  Overall I think that they did a pretty good job considering how many thousands of those engines they were cranking out. Like anything else in mass production, there inevitably was an amount of variation despite their best efforts to control deviation from the design specs. Hence "trust but verify".