Timing the motor

[Le Mans]

Best to pull off valve Cover, find out tdc from spark plug hole and Redo the markings. They Might be wrong even when new

[patrickt]

Use a small, hi-speed cutting wheel to cut a small window in the cover. It wouldn't have to be much, and no one would ever see it. You'd think there would already be one there.

[Tommy]

There are all sorts of techniques for finding Top Dead Center on #1 cylinder. Use Google to find the one you like best. Once you have your engine at TDC on #1, you can put a temporary or permanent mark on the pulley that covers the balancer. You can put the mark anywhere you like as long as there is a corresponding stationary item nearby that you can use as a pointer. Or you can fabricate a pointer and put it wherever you like. Once you have TDC marked on your pulley, you can put additional marks for 10 degrees BTDC or whatever you like on the pulley. Just measure the total circumference of the pulley and divide that by 360 to find the distance per degree. For example, if the pulley were 36 inches in circumference, each tenth of an inch would be one degree. Assuming your pulley turns clockwise (when looking from in front of the car), a mark one inch clockwise around the circumference of the pulley from your TDC mark would be 10 degrees BTDC.

[CHANMADD]

Just a thought here..... Could your cam timing be off?

[Jaydee]

Another quick way, Take out number one plug, turn motor over by hand, until you feel compression, insert a long thin screwdriver down plug hole, and youl feel the piston come up. As it nears the top use 2 fingers to hold the screwdriver against the head with other hand make a pencil mark on the crank pulley.keep turning it over as the screwdriver comes up and back down, as your fingers bottom out on the head again, make another mark. between the two marks should be tdc. As you rock the engine, youll get a feel for it. That should be pretty close. "
JD

[blykins]

Originally Posted by Jaydee

Another quick way, Take out number one plug, turn motor over by hand, until you feel compression, insert a long thin screwdriver down plug hole, and youl feel the piston come up. As it nears the top use 2 fingers to hold the screwdriver against the head with other hand make a pencil mark on the crank pulley.keep turning it over as the screwdriver comes up and back down, as your fingers bottom out on the head again, make another mark. between the two marks should be tdc. As you rock the engine, youll get a feel for it. That should be pretty close. "
JD

Alright, so tell us how you'd find 36° BTDC after that.

That's a very crude way of finding TDC, and probably isn't even accurate enough to do that.

This is why and how engines get screwed up, don't run right, lose power, etc.

If there are no marks, find a way to make marks. If the balancer marks don't show up, get some MSD timing tape, use a piston stop and figure out where TDC is. Put on the timing tape, get a timing light, time the engine, and do it the right way.

You all may get red at me for saying that, but I promise you that if I sold someone a $20k engine and they asked where to put the timing at and my reply was, "Put a screwdriver in the hole, find TDC, then just move the distributor around until it sounds right..." then all thoughts of professionalism would go down the toilet.

[Jaydee]

Of course not. I said it'll be pretty close. It'll get the car started etc.
If I sold someone a $20.000 dollar engine, I'd be emberrased if I didn't put any timing marks on it. I know how to do it properly. I was being basic to help out.
JD