Breathing new life into the 318 in the Scamp!

Good to know on the stock bottom ends against lift! Thanks.

Duration is nowhere near even a stock 340 cam, so the intake valve won't chase the piston down too quickly and the piston won't chase the exhaust valve up too close, either.

I think since I've got a dial indicator, I'm going to double check actual zero against the old balancer by going .060" piston drop BTDC and again at ATDC and mark on a degree wheel, then center and remark zero with timing tape.

After that, I'm thinking I should check the head with a dial indicator and a super light spring on the retainer, on the cam dry with a blocked hydraulic lifter and watch what the rockers do when I over extend them off of cam lift, until the valve touches and record how many thousandths the valve moves before touching.

If I can do that and mark it at each degree on the crank, from 15 BTDC to 5 BTDC and again from 5 ATDC to 15 ATDC, I should get a good idea of what the valve to piston clearance is at the entire crank angle map where it's critical.

I'm waiting for my pistons and rods, currently.

If I have to cut these pistons, Hughes rents a fixture to do it on the engine, so I'll only be clearancing it in the places I need, if I need to. I'm convinced that the crappy timing chains bounced the valves at times under odd acceleration and deceleration conditions. I'll check the numbers, because I'm not going to do any guess work on this engine, but I doubt it will come to that.