Hi all......so, last night two of my chevy buddies were arguing over the right way to install a cam, with the dots at 12 and 6 o'clock or 12 and 12. They went on for about 15 minutes and I finally had to step in "ok mopar guy here! Logic coming!" I did my best to explain to them (and any of you seasoned or pro engine builders out there please by all means correct me if I'm off base here) but I said it doesn't matter and they looked at me like I'd just pissed in their corn flakes....I said the #1 piston hits TDC twice for every turn of the cam. So, if you put the cam in "180 off" it will be right on when the crank spins one turn...that, then, will be your #1 compression stroke..the parts don't care where the dots are as long as the cam is in the right position on one of those two TDC strokes...am I making sense? I said you should be verifying that you have compression stroke on #1 when the distributor goes in anyway...I'm sure there's probably an industry standard 'right way' and of course there's the degreeing process, but as far as initial installation I've always understood it this way...this, like many things tends to get overthunk
