Thread: Had my Son's cam degreed today.

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Great to see you got it done Don, Its a job very worthwhile doing and can release horses you didn't know you had. Now we need a pic of the stand you guys made

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Well, I read all the info I could find and watched every video on YouTube about degreeing cams and came to the conclusion I am just dumb. The more I learned the less I understood it.

So, I called the guy who did Dan's machining and asked him if he thought it would be ok to just install the cam straight up with no degreeing, like we have always done. He said if it is an Olds he wouldn't recommend it as he sees them all over the place. He suggested we throw the short block in the back of Dan's truck and run it over to him to do it for us. Last night Dan and I built an engine stand and bolted it to our utility trailer and today we took the whole thing over to his shop.

After watching him do it I still don't understand how to do it and am glad we paid him to do it for us. We found out the cam was 4 degrees advanced in the straight up position, so he moved the crank sprocket to another notch and it ended up right on.

I guess there are fabricators and there are technicians........he was amazed at the workmanship on the engine stand we built and we were in awe of his understanding of things mechanical. We feel pretty good now, knowing the cam is where it was designed to run, and next Friday we are going to take the engine back to him, once we have the heads installed, so he can check the fit of the intake. He says if he has to machine the intake a little to get a better fit he can do it while we wait.

He also has my 351 coming along pretty well so I should be able to pick that up by the first of the year.

Don

Dan and I worked for the past several days assembling more parts onto his Olds engine. We needed to put the heads on and take it back to the machine shop so they can check the fit of the intake manifold to the heads to make sure they are square to each other. While we were at it we buttoned up the entire bottom end, installing the oil pump, timing cover, and oil pan. Then the heads got installed.

Since a lot of the gasket mounting areas got painted when we sprayed the block, Dan had to spend a lot of time with Roloc discs gently removing it back down to bare metal in those spots. One thing that held us back was that when we bought a set of intake gaskets from Mr Gasket at their booth in Daytona they gave us the wrong gaskets. The guy checked his computer twice and swore he gave us the right ones, but when we got home we found they were for a 350 Olds, not a 455. I called Mr. Gasket this week and they apologized and sent us out the right gaskets. Dan needed those so he could scribe a line around them so that he wouldn't remove any paint outside where the gasket goes.

While he was doing that I installed the lifters, pushrods, and rocker arms. Now we can haul the engine back to the machine shop for them to do their thing on the intake manifold. Dan's next day off is Friday so we will probably do it then. Dan has also been spending a lot of time wetsanding and polishing all the aluminum parts on the motor, sitting for the past 8 months has dulled them a little and this is a good time to get them looking nice again. Once the manifold is machined we can paint it gold, as well as the transmission and a few misc parts.

Dan has also decided to build a new set of headers for the car. He isn't nuts about the look of the Jaysters on it, plus they aim right at the side of his head and are pretty loud going down the road. Don and I bought him some lakes header parts at Turkey Run for his birthday from saltflatmatt and he is going to use those to make his new headers. We also got him a set of Car Chemistry baffles that will probably help the sound level too.

Here are some pictures from last night. The color photographs way off of what it really looks like in person. The true color is a soft gold and to us looks like what the early Olds engines had from the factory.


Don