Cam Timing, Adjustable Cam Gear

[Pat_in_L.A.]

Cam timing

Here's a pic of the head, rear timing cover, cam and sprocket at TDC with the related marks.

[Pat_in_L.A.]

Cam timing mark as seen in car

If the rubber plug is removed, this is what you see when the crank is on TDC.

[Pat_in_L.A.]

Crank pulley on TDC

Here is where the pulley lines up on TDC.

[GAboySVO]

Pat, those are some very helpful photos and may be deserving of a sticky in the engine section. What do ya think Eric?

[140cilx]

I think this would be a useful sticky as well. Thank you for the detailed pics.

During the reunion this year, Mike walked many of us through accurately finding TDC and cam timing on our engines w/ the use of some specialized tools I don't own. I enjoyed that. It also made the plastic reference marks and broken/worn out plastic timing mark pieces on the front of my engine very suspect. I have no idea where my cam timing is in relation to my crank honestly. I bet most of us would be suprised if things were checked correctly.

I resort to the string method Eric mentioned. Seems to work reliably, but a shame Ford couldn't just stamp the castings w/ reference marks or give us METAL indicators rather than plastic.

[SVOeric]

I'll sticky, and plan to add a couple of pics to it today ..

[Erics SVO]

Paul, your PM box is full. Get back w/ me!

Thanks, Eric

[Gyrhead]

String Method?

Ok, so the plastic pointer for the cam is missing from the motor (of course). In fact, so is the entire top half of the rear timing cover (the guy that owned this car before me was a hack!) so, 2 questions. If I turn the cam shaft keyway to the 6 o-clock position (when viewed from front), both eccentric parts of the cam lobes on no 1 cylinder are not compressing the cam followers at all (the exhaust lobe is at 3 o-clock and the intake at 9:30 roughly) This suggests TDC to me. I thought somewhere, Pat had indicated that absent the pointer, the keyway pointing down was a good approximation. Am I correct?

Second question, Eric, I didn't quite understand the string method. Am I aligning the mark on the cam gear to the mark on the accessory drive in a straight line?

[SVOeric]

the string goes from the center of the bolt that holds on the aux shaft gear, to the center of the bolt that holds on the cam shaft gear..

I've been trying to get out and take a pic, but I havn't had a chance..

[FendleySVO]

Re: OK, help here

Originally posted by Gyrhead
I searched and ressurected this thread to help sort my new 2R out. For those following the saga, I unbolted the down pipe to no avail. The car still has no power, runs poorly. So, now, I'm turning my attention to timing. Remember that this car was running at roughly 20 deg ATDC, and the location of the distributor in the motor (TFI pointing backwards almost pointing at the oil cooler) suggests someone has been screwing around with it. Now I suspect that the car has either jumped a tooth or has other issues. By way of history, in another thread, I detailed replacing all the tune-up parts with MC, cleaning the IAC, replacing TFI and TPS (Code 23) checking fuel pressure and pulling codes, and the car still has spool up issues (I haven't pulled vac on the wastegate, but will tonight) Everyone thought the cat or exhaust was pluged, so I checked and it's clear. Car still is dogging. The car has a Racer Walsh adjustable cam gear on it and it's clearly not set to the neutral position there is a
-10/+10 marking on the gear and it appears to be at roughly 6 degrees to the plus side, however I have two problems. After backing off the cap screws in the RW gear, I can't get it to move at all by turning on the center bolt. What the hell am I missing. Also, without having the stock timing marks from the stock cam gear, is there some other reference on the RW piece I can use?

EDIT: Not sure whether there is a stock cam in the motor. I suspect from the various low buck attempts to build HP I've seen on this car, the internals are prolly stock. Also, why would one retard ignition timing and advance cam timing. I don't get it????

Hey fellas, Since this subject interests me.can you tell me where the distributor plug on an 86 shuold be facing? The car I bought faces and almost hits the intake manifold..Rick....

[GAboySVO]

The car I bought faces and almost hits the intake manifold..Rick....

You can remove the distributor hold down and rotate the distributor by one tooth to move the TFI connector away from the manifold. You will need to reset your timing. Make sure you rotate the crank to top dead center before pulling out the dizzy. The TFI should not be that close to the manifold.

[SVOeric]

Since My pointers don't look quite like pat's -- I'm going to post a couple more pics here -- basically same thing Pat had...

This is what MY cam pointer looks like

[SVOeric]

This is the Crank gear, and notch -- My crank gear only has a punch mark on it --

[SVOeric]

This one shows the full setup, with everything lined up --

Since I couldn't demonstrate the string method (I couldn't hold the string, and take the pic at the same time) -- I added it with photoshop --

as you can see -- going from the center of the cam gear bolt, to the center of the aux gear bolt, shows exactly where the cam pointer should be.

[SVOeric]

this one shows the distributor --

notice that the rotor points to where #1 would be if the cap were installed.