How To Degree A Cam

I recently rebuilt my 200. It had a 264 duration cam already in it. I don't know who made it or any other specs than that. It also has the 1.6 roller tip rockers. I have the two barrel Weber conversion done to the intake log on a later 250 head. I'm guesstimating between 9.5 to 10 to 1 compression. The engine runs great jus doesn't have much off the line pep. Granted I should have went to a stall convertor but still doesn't quite perform as well as I would expect.
I am planning on a 8" rear swap to drop some lower gears in. I ran across some cam listings for Clay Smith saying their cams are ground straight up and most others are machined 4 degrees advanced. Maybe my problem?
If I need to degree the cam how do you adjust it? Do you set it a tooth off of the timing marks?

thanks

Below is a link to a video from severial years ago by a site member "echo1955" and he did a great job covering the process of cam degree-ing. Enjoy it!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zj-GA494SJQ

Degreeing a cam is pretty much a necessity and you should not take for granted it will be correct just installing it dot to dot, there are just too many variables in the machining process of all components involved for that to happen most times. It does take some specialized tools but you can buy them as a kit from most any cam company like Comp or Crane and even Jeg's or Summit.

"…how do you adjust it?…"
I think there's 3 ways during the process bubba refered U too:
#1) an offset woodruff key
2) extra slots cut in the crank sprocket (echo's method)
3) I forgot

but I think only the 3. The valve events, da upsie/downsie of the pistons, etc.
The set a"tooth off" might B too much (how would U do that?), the degreeing will tell U everything.

Out of curiosity, how many of you have degreed your cam, and found it was out of spec and had to be adjusted ?
DannyG

There are too many manufacturing tolerance variables for each of the individual components for it to be "dead on" even most of the time. I degree all the ones in the engines i've built for myself and for customers, and have had to tweak 75% or more of them. Also keep in mind that many timing sets for certain engines purposely retard the camshaft for emissions purposes, so its always a good idea to check yours before putting the timing cover on.

CNC-Dude":19f4jy56 said:

There are too many manufacturing tolerance variables for each of the individual components for it to be "dead on" even most of the time. I degree all the ones in the engines i've built for myself and for customers, and have had to tweak 75% or more of them. Also keep in mind that many timing sets for certain engines purposely retard the camshaft for emissions purposes, so its always a good idea to check yours before putting the timing cover on.

Click to expand...

Dude is right on.