La318 cylinder head question

Using your method, it's hard to say.
I have never used your method.
And I can't get sense of how you wrote it;
In the same sentence, the piston is at the top, then it is coming up. So, wth stroke is it on at what time?
Looking at the factory 318 cam specs, with the cam installed 4* advanced, the intake should be opening at about 12* before TDC and closing 48* After Bottom dead center.
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The usual method for estimating cam timing, is to set the cam at split overlap, then read the balancer.
This is done with the piston at TDC-EXHAUST. Normally I rotate the crank until both lifters have risen to the same height, using numbers one or six. Then read the TDC mark on the balancer, having previously proved the TDC mark.
That reading should be in the window of 8* advanced to 4* retarded. The engine will run quite well anywhere in the window.
The more advanced the cam is, within the window, the more low-rpm power it will have. As the cam is retarded in the window, it will trade away that bottom end power to get some operating rpm at the top.
If it is outside the norm, that would be grounds for digging deeper.
When i do this to estimate cam timing, TDC is correct on the balancer, and with both lifters at exactly the same height it is reading about 1° advanced. So I assume this means it’s not the timing chain.

The exhaust valve on that cylinder is definitely leaking, using the carb cleaner test. The rest are not, on that side. The pushrods don’t look bent, unless one is off by a tiny fraction. What would I look for, for a pumped up lifter? I don’t know what that means.

The valve wasn’t stuck in the guide, and no valve springs are broken. The engine did sit for a long time before I got it, but I saw it running on a stand before I bought it, and the valve marks were not on the pistons when I got it. The lifters had bled down by the time I got it installed though.