Finding the Intake Lobe Centerline is essential to degree a camshaft, and it’s easy.
Step 1: Roll the cam over until an intake lobe is up and pre-load the dial indicator so it will track on the lobe. Next, rotate the cam back and forth and watch the dial to find the ultimate peak of the lobe. Zero it out at the top. This is the max lift.
Step 2: Roll the cam backward until the gauge reads .50 lift before max lift and take a degree reading from the cam wheel.
We got 72.750, so we’ll call it 73.
Step 3: Roll the cam forward, past max lift to .50 after and take a degree reading.
Step 4: We got 154.5
Add the two readings together. (Our case, 73 + 154.5 = 227.5)
Then divide the total by two. (227.5 divided by 2 = 113.750) for the intake centerline.
Our intake centerline is at 113.750. This tells us how advanced the cam is.
