I installed a set of Skunk2 Cam Gears (both set to 0 till I can get some dyno time) and when I fired it up the exhaust was noticeably louder and it felt like I had a lot of mid/high power but the low end was slightly lacking.

After pulling the valve cover a few days later I discovered that I was a tooth off with both cams. (I had a paint can mishap before the swap so I “cleaned” off the paint in the lines on the crank pulley) Apparently I used the "red" mark instead of the "white" one to line up the cam timing with the new gears. stupid me. I moved it and set the ignition timing from 21 to 16 and it now runs at normal exhaust note and seems to have the normal power back.

This raises a major question in my mind. I was running both cams ~8degrees retarded and the engine ran freakin awesome above 3k and not really any real major issues below 3k except for a little less power than now.
I'm really confused....

Anyone have any idea why this is/was?
Or what exactly moving each cam does?
What does retarding/advancing the Intake cam do?
What does retarding/advancing the Exhaust cam do?
Why did running the cams that far off make the engine not run like total crap? Or even idle funky....

 

no one has any idea what changing the cam timing does?

 

search knows.all you gotta do is type cam timming....

 

Sport Compact Car did a write up on this last year I think (Suck/Squish/Bang/Blow series). Search their website if you don't find anything on here.