cas alignment

[fatboybell]

Am I correct in believing that if you have your engine set at tdc the cas should only go in one direction.Do you have to time the cas? or does the offset of the drive on the cam determine this?Basically I just timed the cams and the engine will not even try to start unless you remove the cas bolts and crank it really far clockwise looking from the front.any ideas on what to check?

[DAEDALUS]

The CAS is adjustable--if you loosen the screws then you will have to use a timing light to get it right. Remember that every 1* of rotation on the CAS is 2* difference on ignition timing. Not sure what you mean by "only go in one direction" but the mark needs to point to the left if TDC *on the compression stroke* or to the right if TDC on the exhaust stroke. Get a timing light on there and see where you're at. The CAS position only affects spark timing. If adjusting it all the way one direction gives you a start then something is probably wrong with where it or the cam is at.

[fatboybell]

Hey thanks for your time,I believe what happend was,when trying to time the exhaust cam I did not point the cam dowel straight up from the head.I just put the dowel back in the same place and lined up the mark on the sprocket with the silver link on the chain.I am doing this job with alldata as my reference.It is my understanding that the cam dowels should point straight up when timing the cams.Is this correct?

[DAEDALUS]

Not perfectly straight up. You really need to align all 3 pairs of marks between the chain and the cam/crank sprockets. Don't get confused by the fact that the links will be off by a different amount everytime the crank turns. In other words, even if you line up all the links, after you run the engine the links won't line up again except by chance.

[fatboybell]

Thanks again one last question and I will leave you alone.The sprockets are in time. The problem is I removed the exhaust sprocket to change the cam timing.When I was going back together there are a couple of options on which holes to put the dowel in thus changing the exhaust cam position.so what I am going to try is leaving the sprocket in the chain while turning the cam to go into a dowel hole that will allow the exhaust cam dowel to point up does this sound right?

[DAEDALUS]

If you're certain about the position then you can go that route, except that I would be wary of hitting a valve against a piston since you're at TDC on the #1 piston. #7 is BDC and #3 & #5 are in the middle. You can rotate the crank 45* to give extra clearance on #1.