ok how do you find top dead center of each piston with the heads still on???

 

Depends on how close you want to get and if you trust your damper mark or not.

Finding TDC on #1 is easy if you trust the damper mark and pointer -- just line up the mark with 0 on the pointer. Then mark your damper in 90 degree segments. Using the firing order 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 you can pretty easily rotate the engine by hand to bring each piston to top dead center in that order. Just remember that 8 will come to TDC 90 degrees after 1 and 4 will come 90 degrees after 8 and so on.

If you dont trust the damper it gets tricky. Best way to do it is with a positive piston stop tool that screws into the spark plug hole. you screw the thing in and then rotate the motor over by hand GENTLY. when you feel the piston hit the stop you mark the damper relative to some pointer atached to the block. Can be the stock one or could be some wire you bolted to a timing cover hole -- just has to be rigid.

Then you turn the engine back the other way until it hits the stop again and mark the damper again in line with your pointer. Now measure halfway between the marks you made and make a mark there.

Remove the piston stop and rotate the engine till the mid-mark you made lines up with your pointer and voila, that piston is at TDC.

You could repeat this process for all 8 or just mark the damper like I said above.

 

I was just wondering why you wanted to find tdc for each pistion

 

im a trying to set the valve lash.

 

Ahhh -- well theres a much easier way to do that than finding TDC

Hand turn the engine in its normal direction of rotation while watching the exhaust valve on that particular cylinder. When the exhaust valve begins to open, stop and adjust that cylinder?s intake valve. (Why? Because when the exhaust is just beginning to open, the intake lifter will be on the base circle of the lobe, so the intake is the one we can now adjust.)
After the intake valve has been adjusted, continue to rotate the engine, watching that same intake valve. The intake valve will go to full lift and then begin to close. When the intake is almost closed, stop and adjust the exhaust valve on that particular cylinder. (Again, when we see the intake valve almost closed, we are sure that the exhaust lifter is on the base circle of the lobe.)

That was from a google search btw.
http://www.cranecams.com/?show=faq&id=4

Should apply to hydralic or solid lifters.