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Just a quick note to let you know that I appreciate the fact that you don't claim to know "EVERYTHING" about engine building. It's refreshing to hear someone say, "If you see something, we are doing wrong..... please speak up and help us learn!" Great video!

The "spicy lube" gag genuinely made me laugh my ass off for a solid minute after it hit me what the container was 🤣

Definitely a good idea to advance the cam by at least one keyway. People underestimate the effect of chain-stretch on the eventual cam timing. Great video!

This video right here is a great example on why you pay a shop to do this!! Great video as always!

I use the 050 method. I try to get the rocker arm to sweep in the middle of the valve. I have had issues with the valve tip side loading causing wear on one side of the valve guide. I try to run the shortest pushrod so I can minimize pushrod deflection. Thanks for the video.

Just some food for thought, I always tap and use threaded pipe plugs in the ends of the oil galleries. I’ve personally saw the destruction that occurs when one of those blow out at high rpm. It was even staked.

Great lesson on degreeing a cam! I am with you, I like the .050" open point method. Since IVC affects dynamic compression, and the point many think affects the drivability and torque the most, I like to let it's position dictate where I degree the cam.

Seeing and explaining is the best way to demonstrate any principle. Now I can use this video to reference to refresh school of thought. Thanks for the time and effort.

I have found that teaching and explaining helps me retain better and makes the subject more clear to me.

Amazing explanation of all the topics covered. As someone who has never even thought about any of the topics covered, I was able to understand and follow it. Thank you.

Love your informative videos and am jealous of your relationship and chemistry with your father. Great work and keep it going 👍🏻

Would have been a perfect opportunity to dry(test) fit the relationship of timing marks on balancer and timing tab. Too many variations exist between oem and aftermarket timing locations. Just a thought. I know it can be done later. Just would have been a good opportunity to stress the importance of this step for any SBC. (mild or wild applications).

@JAMSIONLINE, you are getting the best education possible and getting taught by the best instructor and i am seriously impressed by your dedication, commitment, and attention to detail in what you do

The cleaning guy is the best. I don't think I would have touched that bottle though.🤣🤣🤣

When there are two ways to check tolerance, do both and make sure you get the same results 😊

Legend tutorial guys, you missed nothing per usual… stay blessed🤘🇺🇸✌️

Setting the cam to close to the card is a good starting point...but just that as later checking piston to valve clearances will often put limits on how far you can advance the cam. Chasing the exhaust valve closed isn't nearly as critical as opening the intake into a rising piston so intake piston/valve is what I'm concerned with. Once I find the limits of cam timing that will not get into clearance problems....then we see how it runs and try advancing and retarding to find where it runs the best within the clearances that we've proven are safe. At least that's how we play with this stuff. Good video explaining everything for people....very helpful and well done! (P.S. the floors are nice and clean...your sweeper needs a raise!) Edit: I commented before you did your rocker alignment checks: I'd prefer the sweep to be in the center of the valve and live with whatever geometry it gives with the reasoning that if you're pushing off center you are imparting a side load on the valve in the guide. Pushing in the center side loads the valve the least even if the sweep is slightly larger IMHO. LOTS of compromising to be done when building motors...what else would we have to argue about? :)

Excellent video as always. Valve and Rocker geometry always gets tricky with strokers and increased lobe height. I wish back in the day I could have recorded videos to double check my work the next day to make absolutely sure I had done it right.

Really enjoy this build hoping to do something similar for square body chevy pickup soon. I will referring to this build thanks for your videos👍

Something very important you didn’t really mention that newer folks need to know. When you degree a cam and find that it’s advanced or retarded this doesn’t necessarily mean the cam is where the mistake is or isn’t. These variations can be from tolerance stack up from the keyway in the crank being cut wrong, to the upper sprocket being drilled slightly off, to the lower sprocket being machined slightly off. It’s a stack up of many different things.

I have a question about torquing head bolts on the older, non-replaced head bolts AKA non torque-to-yield and non degree. My Dad taught me to use a dial torque wrench and on the final torque to hold that torque and let the wrench creep until it stopped. This fully compressed the gasket and prevented blown head gaskets. He and his brothers ran circle track cars after WW2 and I guess he learned this technique then. Have you or your Dad heard of this before?

Excellent Tutorial, Great Editing. Well Done

Normally I move the valve down to 1/2 its lift then set the roller in the center of the valve and measure for the pushrod. If the 90 degrees looks closer to 60 try a valve lash cap (required on Titanium valves). I have found on several occasions that the intake valve will chase the piston after top center requiring retarding the cam or cutting the piston relief deeper.

Thank you for the video and you're time the time and awesome work we all love watching. 🙏

I understand the light springs so you don't collapses the hydraulic lifter though all your checks, but how did you do the clay check without collapsing the lifter and not get a false reading ?

You did it exactly like I would, and I've been doing it for 50 years. Perfect on the pushrod length and the cam degreeing.

EXCELLENT and descriptive video on how important degreeing a cam and checking P2V clearance is.

Thanks for the video, learnt a lot about dialing in the cam, new what and why but not how

For someone who knows very little of engine rebuilding, this video was excellent. Really opened my eyes. Thank you

very informative video. as others have said, it's refreshing to see you open to other ways of doing things. makes for a much better video all around.

Great information on degreeing the cam as well as setting up the proper valve train geometry.

I used to pick pushrods using a method similar to the "mid lift" method you use. Now I use sticks that are typically .050" or so shorter than you will get with that method, at least for motors designed to roll a lot of miles under the tires. Yes, there is more "sweep" across the valve tip this way but most of it happens when the valve is near the seat where spring tension is a lot lower than near max lift. This is how the factory set up the valvetrain geometry originally for engines designed to live a long time (they just made the sticks "shorter" by using a LOT of lifter preload: 1 or 1-1/2 turns being typical).

Can also use a straight edge across retainer to determine if ur perpendicular.

I’ve been watching your videos for months while I’ve been deployed. You and your dad are great together and y’all’s work is absolutely amazing!

I'm late to the show, but enjoy your time in The Lone Star State-great video, I'll probably be referencing it when I do my next cam install since I have some more precision measurement tools this time.

Keep up the great work fellas 😎🤙 much love from Pennsylvania 🥳🇺🇲

I saw someone doing pushrod measuring and I was amazed by how it also changed the lift of the valve. Next time you check and are messing with the pushrod length pay attention to the lift your getting. It’s was pretty neat.

awsome work i hope we get to see this motor running 🙂

.050th from max lift method works best for me, I've had cams that dwell on max lift several degree's .

Recommendation, never hurts to tap and thread the oil galleys. Right behind the timing chain. Instead of a staking the plug. (Lol actually experienced that the plug getting pushed out. 😮

as far as the geometry goes , after you get your theoretical push rod length at mid lift, I increase the length and decrease the length of the adjustable push rod until max lift on the indicator is achieved

Great video, lots of good info

Yeah - that went right over my head. Impressive work. :D

Nice video!!! I think the cleaner needs a vacation! It appears he is slacking off ✌️✌️✌️

Cool ! Thanks . Just patiently waiting.

Extremally Interesting ! Thanks for sharing .

the cleaning guy and clarence, an incredible father son duo

I use .015 from the bottom of a hydraulic lifter to set height, and geometry . The hydraulic lifter after .015 is slow pumping reaction vs Solid.

I do just like the cam companies says to do on degreeing the cam. First find top dead center. Set indicator on 0 on heel of cam, # 1 intake lobe. Turn cam max lift, 0 indicator that drop .050" on one side of lobe and take reading on degree wheel, than turn cam until you are at .050" on the other side of lobe and take reading off degree wheel. Add the two readings together and divide by 2 = lobe center installed... This method works fine...

Great work, as usual...👍

The spicy lube joke was funny, but where and who had the empty bottle?!? Lol

Since the pressure is greatest at full lift I'd think that would be the target to have the roller at the center of the valve. I guess another school of thought would be to have it roll through center at mid lift spreading valve side loading equally. But when one takes into account spring load relative to lift it would not be equal. The load over center (meaning off of, having passed through center) would always be highest.

After you put the heads on and do the final torque take a 1/2” brass punch and hit the heads of all the head bolts a few times, then re-torque. I guarantee you will be shocked by what you find, how much of few wacks changes the torque. Check it with a digital torque wrench and you’ll see exactly how much they change. That’s a trick I learned from Alameda race engines. It helps head gaskets especially if you’re running high compression.

They sell a screw driver looking tool for the spring locks. I seen a guy just screw them into the piston.

Excellent machine work and understanding of numbers! When will you cc the heads and block to get static compression? Those pistons and heads might keep it low. Weld county elevation is 4,675 so 11:1 is ideal with alum. heads. Those AFR's and that comp cam are a little too big for a 383 on the street with pipes and mufflers up here. On the track open headers, gears, high rpm probably OK. Also you need to change those studs and rockers to 7/16 or I guarantee the 3/8 will be bent. We have run your exact setup and many other smallblock and LS combos on the street here in Colorado for many years. Thank you!

I'm happy of being your subscriber 😊

When pairing up piston, connecting rod , wrist pin, bearings and crank journal location, would you find it worth it to try and swap around parts to minimize piston in the hole differences if planning to go turbo with a 9.5:1 compression ratio ?

What you call "true TDC" is the centre of the dwell time of the piston at the top of its stroke. At either end of its stroke the piston arrives pauses (dwells) before reversing its direction as the crank rotates, i.e. if you set 0deg as the piston arrives your timing will be slightly advanced.

Be sure to double check the three stand-offs in the valley if using the factory style roller, as I understand it those will need to be tapped and threaded to hold down the retainer plate or spider :) I have a 1 year only 1986 block that has 2 stand offs in the valley in a totally different pattern. I've been wondering if I can modify the later spider simply by redrilling the holes to line up. We'll see when I get to that point hahaha

@JAMSIONLINE just curious but how many turns of the rocker nut did you get to get zero lash? i was taught a good rule of thumb is to try and get the nut engagement to roughly the bolt/stud diameter. Ex: 3/8-24 would be about 9 turns. I have found sometimes when doing mid-lift method that i won't have enough recommended thread engagement and have to get longer studs or shim the existing ones

Great content thanks for sharing

I recently learned a hard lesson. Maybe you could do a video on it. I threw some heads with 2.08 valves on a 4.060 bore engine. The quench cut outs on the piston being for probably 1.94 valves led to a slight touch that undoubtedly with the correct cut outs would have cleared by a mile

Outstanding video Jamie, I love this shit

Yep, that mid lift rabbit hole on old school sbc for checking correct push rod length will have you scratching you head, need shaft rockers to fix that problem, hay just a couple thousand more LOL, built this same engine last year, same prob, new crank needed to be index ground, line bore and deck block, the cam I had made is so close to yours its not worth comparing, same heads other than I had upgraded springs and retainers and went 7/16 rocker studs, same compression ratio, 10.5 to 1, a comment was made on your way cost 10,000 to build, we spent 12,000 and no it does not have shaft mount rockers LOL , and my labor was free, but I have peace of mind that every thing was as good as I could get it, good job on that build I love seeing someone try to do things right by paying attention to detail, im with you and check both ways on deg a cam, but I always end up at at .050 method, I try to find the smallest sweep as close to center as possible on mine I ended up a little towards exhaust, maybe .050 towards exhaust from center,

Is there any play in the cam gear before snugging the bolts down? If so, would you center the gear or push to the most clockwise amount of lash?

Informative and interesting!! 🙂

I thought for sure the cleaning guy was going to give you Sriracha sauce. I could not have been more wrong...

Thank you for the content. 👍

That 110° lobe separation is 3-4° too wide for best torque. Also, what head flow numbers lead you to believe that more exhaust duration than intake duration was needed?

Really nice work

I used the 50 method always, back when I was Drag Racing

Love what you do and the way you do it. I do have a question. Since you and your dad build crazy engines do you have any cool personal cars that are tricked out? They might be nice to see. Thanks

The secret is in the sauce.?? Lol Always good work gentlemen.

Very good video!

Awsome video thanks

I'm ready to hear this thing run

On point Mr👏👏🤙🏼

I personally would only use the 0.050 method with one procedure added that I have not seen in the video. That would be to only get your 0.050 mark on the clockwise direction of rotation so as to eliminate any variance that the chain might have.

Derek at Vice Grip garage did a video on valve train setup. You seem to have it under control.

We’re gonna be putting an amc 304 together sometime this winter. Any recommendations on a cam? It’ll be a stick car, and he wants it to have a nice lumpy idle more so than being fast

Interesting to see the degree wheel. I used one on McCulloch 2 cycle go kart racing engines. 😉

With zero deck pistons and closed chamber heads, what is the minimum piston to head clearance recommendations?

Spicy Lube! That was funny.

Little secret tip stretch those flat spring locks apart then install been doing it for years in other words make them look like a valve spring then install I won't tell you who showed that you ever built a nitro motor they usually use his pistons

I suspect that the cleaning guy is the actual customer in this build.

I have been building Big Block Chevys since the late 80s, one thing I have learned about them is that they are very picky about valve train geometry and setup of the heads, mainly because of the canted valves, plus the valves are huge and heavy and the springs are stiff to control the heavy valve. for that reason, I use both methods to degree the cam. i use the intake centerline method to double check that the cam is what it says it is, and that the lobe centerline is correct, and I check using the valve opening and closing point to verify that the manufacture ground the cam correctly. also, with roller cams i check to make sure the wheel on the lifter is parallel to the lobe. I recently was building a 396 and had 2 sets of link bar lifters that were off by about 5 degrees from parallel. one lifter was strait and the one that it was linked to was angled just enough to see with the naked eye that it was not parallel. sent them back to got 2 replacements. the replacements were perfect. so, mistakes in manufacturing do happen. I also use both the clay method and the dial indicator method for checking piston to valve clearance. yes, it takes a bit longer, but it is better to de 100% sure than to bend the valves when you fire it up for the first time. one other thing i do with big blocks is that i find some manufactures don't use stiff enough springs in the spring recommendations for their cams. for example one spring is recommended seat pressure on 122lbs at 1.9 inch installed height. but i found that in this particular engine, it wanted to float the valves above 5500 RPM. which can be disastrous in a big block. so, i shimmed them .045 and it bumped the spring to 136lbs at an installed height of 1.855. and it stopped the valve float issues from 5500-6000 rpm. granted this 383 is a small block and doesn't have the valve train issue inherent with big blocks. i just found that most manufacture are not recommending enough spring with their cams. at least not for big block Chevy's anyway.

Great video! Were you installing the cam per customers needs , warranty availability, or just to show us.? ;) 😅 And great idea with view finder. Smart man! Sure beats holding a protractor lolol

Look into ring manufacturers recommendations. They recommend lite oil for brake in. I've even heard of WD-40.

The PERFECT explanation of getting the math right and making the motor correct.

I don't know if I missed something, but why not start the rocker sweep checking with the cam at half lift then extend the rod till you get the 90deg then snug the adjuster?

With the pistons 6 thou down in the cylinders could you offset grind a 400 crank to a stroke of 3.87? This would put the pistons level with the deck and increase displacement by over 11 cubes to just under 395 CI. Just a thought!

With stud mounted rockers on a SB Chev you'll just about never get to perfect geometry....The studs are just not in the ideal location. It's always a compromise. Shaft rockers addressed this problem years ago....Jesel's.....I use the ink method and eyeball the rocker.....I build bracket race engines sometimes and the last one I did had an old set of Canfield aluminum heads. Had to use a .300 long pushrod....I think 7.800 is stock length.....Did 2- 400's a while back....One with AFR heads and one with Pro Action heads.....solid roller cams......

I recall the belated Joe Sherman stating once the engine is running the cam retards about 2 degrees, which makes sense when you consider you have the load of the cam opening several lifters as well as the resistance of the cam driving the oil pump. I've played with cam timing on the engine dyno and you'd be amazed at how little change advancing or retarding a cam has on both the numbers and the curves, at least where larger race style cams are concerned. (I.E. 2 degrees of advance traded the torque and horsepower numbers by about 2 on a 650 HP engine) It would be interesting to do a degree sweep between 4 advanced to 4 retarded on a street oriented engine such as the one in the video to see how it would react.

My wife loves that assembly lube.

Ya is see something that will make it much easier to dial in the cam. I always dial in the cam and check the P 2 V with only the # 1 piston in the engine.

I've seen on another youtuber video where he shows that different timing sets gives different effects to cam timing.

Notification SQUAD! Have a nice weekend!🔥🔥🔥

U said if u draw a straight line on the rocker from center of the trunion to the center of the roller tip? Wouldn't it be the contact point of the roller tip? If it's the center, then how do u do it with a non roller tip rocker?

You need to add .050" to your push rod measurement for lifter preload.