I would hate to see you fire up a motor and immediately damage it.
I know its a pain, and with the lift being low, you may very well be in the clear. But that cam has a lot of duration and you want to make sure you get this right so get a spare head gasket and spare timing cover gasket, make up a piston stop like in my photo I purchased the steel bar on ebay), a checking spring, degree wheel, dial indicator and a way to rotate the motor with the balancer off (I like the Comp Cams version that lets you adjust the degree wheel independently of the crank turning function although they are not cheap). Find true TDC (btw, I have had at least two sets of gears that were marked but the marks were off just a tiny bit so they are not totally accurate). Once you know where true tdc is, install your checking spring, put the head back on with a gasket (the old one is fine), put a push rod in, install the rocker assembly and adjust the valve for No. 1. Back the motor down to 10 degrees btdc and take a measurement, the 5 btdc, then tdc, 5 after tdc, 10 atdc. If your measurements are all above .070 you are golden and may proceed in confidence that you will not have any issues with valves hitting the piston. You could even get away with .060. But if you get any number smaller, you have to either flycut the pistons for a valve relief, or have the cam reground so that it does not hit. With my boy's motor, we opted to have a cam reground to solve the clearance issue but even when I get the cam back, I will still go through the above to double check.
Last edited by Dragsix; 08/28/2023 4:41 PM.
