im in the middle of building my ls-vtec its a 99 ls block and 00b16 head. I cant get the cam gears to to point at 12 O'clock and have the little marks on them to line up with out having to twist the cam so much that some of the valves are open. there 99 ls cam gears also but what am I doing rong? this is my first time building a motor so please go easy on me thanks

 

If you go off the two arrows on the cam gears they'll just be pointing up, not necessarily directly at 12-o-clock tho. What you need is for the ticks on the cam gears to point directly at one another. It may take a little of holding the cam as they do sometimes tend to rotate back to their neutral but that's normal.

 

now im confused. So if the marks on the cam gear are lined up then the arrows should be facing the same way also. but I thought that you have to have the arrows pointing up and the crank top dead center to have everything timed right? I still dont under why when I try to face the arrows up I have to have someone twist the sprocket so much that its opening valves just to get the arrow pointing up. dose everyone have to do this when they change ther timing belt? I thought that the cams should sit right in perfict and alls I would have to do is slip the belt on.

 

Sorry to have confused you but to make it simple, most of the time you do have to rotate the cam a little (they'll NEVER sit exactly at "TDC" for the cam gears to line up). The thing is some motors "hold" the cams a little tighter which holds them in place once you have got them set, others will rotate back to neutral (which truely isn't TDC to the bottom end). Hope this helps but trust me, just line up the ticks and you'll be set.

 

ok thanks man im gonna try it tonight ill let you know how it works out

 

k I think it is right, I rotated the crank 3 or 4 times and the ticks still line up perfict. thanks for the help bro