Good afternoon yall, silly question but my machinist gave me this engine tech timing gear set but it came with no directions and I cant find anything about it online. So it someone can help me, that would be amazing. Its for a 454 and I cant figure out which timing mark is 0 degrees advance. Is how I have it set up correct or does it need to be aligned with the dot to the right of it? Sorry it is an easy question but I dont wanna be putting stuff together and have to take it all apart. Please let me know if any more info is required

 

Hmm. What I see is an adjustable crank sprocket with a neutral, 4 advanced (4A) mark and probably a 4R also.
My concern is not your dot to dot, it is the position of the crank keyway.
Here is my 9 way adjustable crank socket, set to 0, with the #1 piston set carefully to TDC.
Note how my crank keyway on my 454 points to around the 2 o'clock position, about 45 degrees to the right, but yours does not.
Your crank keyway points to 12 o'clock.

It looks like the dot you lined it up on is for the keyway.
Look closely at yours, there is a second dot by the teeth, located three teeth counter clockwise.
That is the one you use to line up the gear. Then it would be positioned just like mine.
All of my degree marks have 2 marks, A2 by crank key, A2 by timing gear, etc. And 3 teeth to the left.

I would still use a degree wheel and degree in that cam. Sometimes cams are ground straight up, and sometimes ground 4 advanced. I currently have 1 of each.

 

Thank you so much! Thats what I thought originally but I second guessed myself. I will change it over. Thanks again for the answer. I believe the cam is ground 0 but i will double check

 

Sorry for another question, but is there a paticular reason for the second keyway on the crank? My harmonic balancer only has one keyway so do I just not use it?

 

Yes I was wondering why yours has two. IIRC in the old days if you added a blower, a second keyway was recommended.
In your case you need to make absolutely sure which one is the main one.
When #1 piston is at or even near TDC, the correct keyway is at 1:30 on a clock-face. When 12 is pointing at the other gear.

Most cams seem to like being installed 2 or 4 degrees advanced, like 110 ILC on a 112 LC. But if you use both the advance ground into the cam, and a adjustable keyway, you could wind up with double the advance you want.

One peculiar observation we made just last saturday on the adjustable keyways. If you use the center (0) dot, the timing gears line up exactly, upper tooth into the bottom of the valley of the crank gear teeth. But if you use an A2 or A4 position, it does not line up exactly. There is an odd # of 25 bottom crank gear teeth. Because I advanced mine at A4, the upper timing gear tooth is 4 degrees advanced from lining up exactly into the bottom of the valley of the crank gear teeth. Puzzled looks by all ?!?!?!

It took about 14 degrees of movement to move all the way from the top of one tooth to the top of the next tooth. Wish I had a picture. So at 4 advanced, instead of aiming at the bottom, it looks like is halfway to the next tooth. The dial indicator confirmed the odd alignment was correct at A4. Wheh!

I am at the shop now, so I took a picture of my crank gear.

This is what I mean by the teeth not lining up with these adjustable crank gears. Final setting was 2 degree retarded. Cam was ground 4 degrees advanced. We only wanted 2 advanced. Final setting 110 ILC on a 112 LC cam. Trust me this is exactly TDC. The crank is advanced two, so the cam is retarded two.

 

Thanks for the help! I couldn't find if it was ground advanced or not so I just left it as it at 0 degrees. This engine has already taken too long to build so I am just trying to get it running now! Interesting with the dual keyways for boosted applications. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have both but not needed for my application, thankfully!

 

That bottom pic isn't together correctly. If you look at the gear you'll see another dimple in the crank gear at about 5 o'clock. THAT dimple is what should align with the dot on the cam gear when you have the keyway in the "0" slot shown now.

Same is shown in the top pic with the 4*A slot and the 4*A mark.

As mentioned..best is to degree it in. I recently did a 528 Hemi using a gear set like Leigh posted with a custom solid roller. It took the 4* retard combo to end up at 4* advanced. It had originally been built "straight up" from the high end race shop and it peaked on the dyno very early. Found out it was installed at a 95* ICL vs the 104* it was designed to be. Of course we found lots of other issues also after it spun 4 rods! Decided I'd do it this time for my buddy. It's still alive and making a lot more power!

JIM

 

Ditto here! It took setting mine at 2 Retard to wind up with a 2 Advanced cam.

While you have it open, I would strongly recommend "degreeing it" and dialing it in.
You will hate it later if you wind up 4 degrees off.