when aligning the the two gears, the cam and crank. I tried my best to completely align the two dots. But i was unable to. At #1 TDC i get full blowout as if there is fully functional valve control. I also have good valve to piston clearance.

Is it normal for the two dots to not align perfectly? I got maybe a cm off. And couldn't fix it. Is that much difference ok? i dont have the exact tools needed to degree a cam. PS: the timing set is a cloyes true double roller.

Next question...
My starter didn't fit. Its a 73 350, and it had the old 2 piece rear main seal flexplate. THe bolt pattern is completely different. What starter do i ned to fit this?

Next...
During cam breakin, if the motor doesn't start right away, what do i do? Do i keep trying to start, i understand the contrinual starting will probrably hurt the brand new cam. I dont want todo that. I have springs rated for .550 lift and i only have .460 max lift. Pressures should be ok. they were rated for hydrolic flat tappet cams.

 

well after some searching and more searching my best option is to just get the starter the 350 orignally came with. So i ordered it. Will be here saturday hopefully.

on the valve timing and cam brekain i am still stuck wondering.

 

if you don't have the dots aligned take it apart and align them, there is no reason you couldn't align them other than you didn't want to take the time to do it. sorry to say i'm not sure what a cm. looks like, but the dots should line up. your springs should match your cam, running more than is needed isn't good. if it doesn't fire you need to do something to make it fire, most likely adjust the distributor.

 

i tried and i tried to get those dots to align. And i couldn't I adjusted one link at a time on the cam gear and it would go even further off.

1cm is less then half an inch if i recall correctly.

come to think of it, it might be half a cm. Thats about it.