[fredd7924]

im putting together my 327 as a basic street driver and i was wondering if i should be worrying about piston to valve clearance. the bottom end of the block hasent been touched(stock pistons and bore). but i am putting in the cc 268 cam with .454 lift and i got the felpro 1094 headgasket (.015 thickness) to mount my vortec heads. do i need to check this clearance or is this just for bigger lift cams and such?


also i was reading about degreeing the cam, is that something else i NEED to do, or can i get away with just swapping the cams out by tdc and matching the dots and such.


one more thing, when i pulled my harmonic balancer off i noticed that there was no bolt holding it to the crank. is that normal or am i missing a bolt?

 

[Gary L]

Can't help with th clearance issue, but the bolt in the crank snout was an addition for the hi-po engines.

 

[fatblock]

im putting together my 327 as a basic street driver and i was wondering if i should be worrying about piston to valve clearance. the bottom end of the block hasent been touched(stock pistons and bore). but i am putting in the cc 268 cam with .454 lift and i got the felpro 1094 headgasket (.015 thickness) to mount my vortec heads. do i need to check this clearance or is this just for bigger lift cams and such?


also i was reading about degreeing the cam, is that something else i NEED to do, or can i get away with just swapping the cams out by tdc and matching the dots and such.


one more thing, when i pulled my harmonic balancer off i noticed that there was no bolt holding it to the crank. is that normal or am i missing a bolt?

Yes to your(do I need to check clearance) question.The lift is not so much of an issue as compared to the overlap period when the valves are closest to the piston...+-10 degrees at TDC.
Degreeing the cam..imho is peace of mind.you may find that straight up is optimal and does not require an offset bushing or crank gear position to dial in the cam to spec.In a non competition engine...dot to dot is acceptable.Just remember to check your P/V clearance after you have linked the cam to the crank.

 

[zdld17]

Agree to the above on checking but in the past , I have had on issues with stock stuff with a 268 cam. I would be more concerned about getting compression up and ideal quench. You may want to put a wheel on it just to make sure there are no errors in cam.