To degree or not to degree cams. How and what kind of power grains?

 

Degree...........It is not about power. All your engine math needs to be accurate in the first place. Once that is correct, you can start playing with them.
Any changes as far as deck height, headgasket thickness, head machined down, will change the relationship of the block vs head. This can only be corrected by Degreeing the cams.

 

Nice write up about how to do it

http://www.hondatuningmagazine.com/t...fts/index.html

 

Exactly. Some popular "shelf" cams wont even start the car or idle at 0 / 0 degrees. All you need is centerline for each, and a degree set.

 

Do it. We installed a set of Skunk2 Pro 1 cams only to find while degreeing them the retainer was bottoming out on the valve guide seal

 

i dont stick to traditional ways of degreeing cams, i usually measure how much clearance i have with v to p and v to v. when assembling the motor, then i know how far i can go then just degreeing to spec sheets of a cam card.

what a cam card wont tell you is who made the piston and who machined the heads.

my.02

 

I highly recommend degreeing in the cams....

http://www.skunk2.com/camshaft_tech.php

 

Explain one more time............. I am confused by your wording.

 

sorry j, i get that all the time. lol

i was implying what you said but i always like to know what kind of clearances i have inside the motor valve to valve and valve to piston.

then degree the cams and you have piece of mind how far you can go adv and ret. without getting into problems. make sense ?

 

Ha Ha, I am misunderstood alot myself.
Thanks for clearing that up, I agree as well

 

I always thought this was a v8 thing good thing posed this question,but I dont build engines either.

 

100% degree cams is a must, we change stuff on the power curve of the Cobalt and believe us it helps. We change cams we degree more, it helps our car 2step etc....degeeeeeee

 

Can degreeing the cams be done with motor in the car?

 

yes,

 

Do ALL cams need to be degree'd or only certain ones? lets say skunk stage 1 or skunk stage 2's vs pro1's and pro2's?

 

If your head has been milled, block decked, aftermarket h.g., etc, they should be degreed. Jeromie pretty much covered it in the second post.

 

Probably would be very difficult though, especially your first time.. I struggled the first time with the motor out of the car lol

 

Make sure you degree the Vtec lobes when you do or else everything will be off!

 

Question for you guys, i'm confused about something in step 3 from the 2 links posted above (thanks for the links btw!):

Step 3: Rotate the crankshaft. When the cam starts to
open the valve, the dial indicator will show the amount
of valve lift. Rotate the crankshaft and stop when the
pointer is pointing at the specified peak lift/center line
position. Loosen the cam gear bolts and rotate the
camshaft until the indicator is showing that the cam is at
peak lift. Tighten the cam gear bolts.

Now, am i supposed to move the cam and make the cam gear line up to 0 (zero)? and the pointer they're refering to is the pointer on the degree wheel i assume?

sorry if it's an obvious answer...i'm a bit confused by the wording and what it's refering to.

 

Vince Tiaga this is a question for him by the way.

 

Vince, just whip up a quick but in depth DVD.

 

how about a k, skunk stage 3, 13.7:1 wiseco, head not milled stock replacement cometic gasket 88 bore

 

basically what your doing is turning the crank to the correct degree for the cam's centerline, then you will loosen the cam gear bolts and turn the cam to peak lift. you will know you have reached peak lift when the dial indicator has stopped and wants to go back in the other direction. you may have some dwell at that point, so you will split the difference. then tighten the cam gear bolts. rotate the motor again and recheck your findings

make sense?

 

How do you guys lock the vtec lobe in place when degreeing in your camshafts?

 

Shim behing the pins