440 Harmonic Balancer Timing Marks Off

440Leroy said
I appreciate the concern on the degree issue which as I stated I planned on doing initially. but I do agree with Marcohotrod that degreeing a cam is good practice but not absolute for average street muscle car. That being said this is my first engine and I am sure those speaking know A LOT more than I do. I do however think at this point I should tear down the front, take the timing chain off, make POSITIVE I am on the TDC of the #1 Compression stroke and reassemble.. I do understand that IF I am on the #6 stroke that I should be able to set the distributer at the 6 cylinder and make that my #1. correct? - p.s. I do believe all parts are same year/engine. bought it assembled but obviously cant make certain years ago something wasn't changed. Please have some mercy haha trying to do this right and also learn.

It doesn't matter if you are 180* out, because TDC of #1 is the same as TDC #6.

And I would say anyone who thinks only a Ford needs it cam degreed has done much work in the real world. I have seen every brand off. It's called tolerance stack up. At this point, you have no idea where the cam is.

There is a reason why some engines don't make power, are hard to tune and are a general piece of junk. It's because simple engine building processes are skipped.

Go back and degree the cam so you know where you are. Once you do that and verify TDC then check the timing mark. You already have the stuff to degree a cam. And then you misinterpreted what Edelbrock said about degreeing a cam.