I'm into the timing chain on this 1966 361cid. The alignment of the marks on the cam and crank gears is not what I expected. With the #1 piston at the top of the compression stroke, rotor pointing to the same, the cam gear mark is at 12-o-clock (same for the crank gear). I was expecting the cam gear at 6-o-clock.

I'm bringing this engine back from ill-advised modifications to the cam timing. Am I misinformed or is something wrong with this engine?

 

This is a little "trick" that is not documented well, --or at all!!-- in many shop manuals, and applies to GM, Ferd, and Mopar. When you line up the timing marks "by the book" IE cam sprocket at 6 o'clock and crank at 12 o'clock, the no 1 piston is "up" but NUMBER 6 is ready to fire, not number one!!!

So if you were to line the marks by the book, you'd either have to rotate the crank one turn to plug the dist. in at no1, or else leave as is and plug the dist. in to point to no 6

 

Really?! So, the #1 piston is pushing exhaust and #6 is compressing fuel . . . not what I was expecting, but I've not done this before. I'm learning as I go. Thanks, 440roadrunner. I'll get to the garage this weekend and check it out.

 

Never seen it described that way ???

 

Years and YEARS ago, I fell for this. On a big block, because of the way the manifold, etc fits, you can stick the distributor in right after you put i a cam and the gear. So at least twice I put in the cam, "by the book" and stuck in the dist. and then continued to assemble the engine. I could NOT figure out why I got "great ***** of fire" instead of a nice fire--up.

 

When you say "fell for this", what exactly did you fall for?

 

Not knowing, at the time, that "by the book" set the engine up at no6 ready to fire, I plugged the dist in without turning the crank for no1. As I said "great ***** of fire" ---out of the carburetor, that is. The first time I thought, "must'ha forgot and turned the engine." The second time I smelled a rat, and checked out the valves. Yup. No6 valves closed, both no1 valves on split overlap.