Poor performance, anybody got any ideas?

You're going to be happy when you get that Cam degreed properly......

 

Drain fluids, remove belts, hoses,line up dist on number 1, pull dist., remove alt bracket,fuel pump, front 6 bolts on the oil pan,remove the 10-12 bolts holding the front cover on, and degree the f@#$ cam in. Just harassing you. If you were on millionair , your poll of the audience comes back as degree the cam. I have seen very few new cam go in and run great without being degreed. to many other veraibles, crank can be off,the grinder partied to much the night before, so on and so on.

 

Thanks guys. I've got a new gasket set on the way and will be into it this weekend.

 

OK, found he problem this weekend, don't know how I did this but the cam sprocket was about 3-4 teeth advanced from the crank sprocket - Ouch! Checked everything out and started putting it back together. Thanks to everyone for their help.

 

Scott,

Did you have the cam properly degreed in?????????/


Take Care

 

ahhhh......No.

Like I said, I don't know what I was thinking!

 

Scott,

Now that you have found the crank and cam gear off by 3 teeth did you just put it dot to dot or did you have it degreed? I have seen cams off 8 degree when put dot to dot.

Take Care

 

This is a dumb question, but if you don't degree your cam and it is advanced or retarded, let's say 4 degrees, can't you just adjust your timing to offset it so that it would have no impact?

I am sure it is more complicated than that, but can someone give me the layman's explanation?

Thanks, Chris

 

Simple answer........NO

It is not that easy Chris. You have to lock the cam in the proper location, then the chain keeps it there. It is not the same timing as controlling the spark. That help?o No:

 

Re: Simple answer........NO

Not really, but that isn't your fault, it is because I am not mechanically sophisticated!

Thanks anyway though!

I was talking to a friend about how troublesome it is to set up a Buick cam compared to other brands, and he asked me the question I posted, and of course, I had no logical anwer.

 

Chris - the relationship of the piston's location in the bore relative to the valve's opening and closing sequence (at any given instance) is what is "locked in" while degreeing the cam. This can not be changed by any movement of the distributor - only the spark's occurance relative to those two simultanious events is what varies when moving the distributor.

 

Chris,

Think of it as two seperate things.
1. You have your valve TIMING set by the cam.

2. You have ignition TIMING set with your dist.

One controls when the valves open and close in relation to where the piston is, and the other controls when the spark plug fires also in relation to where the piston is.

Does this help?

 

Thanks Alan and Shayne, makes more sense now!

 

Re: Re: Simple answer........NO

Nothing troublesome about Buick cams, they are all set up the same way and need to be degreed.

Let us know how it works after its all done...

later
Tim