BTW I just bought a HEi dizzy off of eBay. 99% of the people I have talked to said I will be fine and stop worrying. Oh and I think I can get the curve right by eyeballing it. If I put the shaft in a vice and whack it 6 or 7 times with a big hammer it should be curved. Before I put it in my engine I can check it on my Blackhawk

 

He's not going to wipe anything from excessive cranking. The cam failures of the past 10-15 years were never from excessive cranking. They were the result of poorly machined lifters. I personally had two that wiped a single lobe each. Neither were the result of oiling/lubrication issues, if they were, they would have wiped multiple lobes and lifters. Both failed in the first twenty minutes. All the other lobes and lifters were fine. That would not have been the case if lubrication were the problem. A lubrication issue (lack of zinc) will not exhibit itself in the breakin period, that will happen over a long period of time. A poorly machined lifter face will prevent the cam lobe from rotating the lifter in it's bore, when this happens, it's a death sentence for the pair in a short period of time. No amount of zinc will prevent the cam lobe from eating into the lifter face when the lifter isn't rotating. Millions of engines were broken in before the rash of failures happened, this rash coincided with the end of US made flat tappet lifter production and the move of that production to overseas manufacture. I myself broke in several flat tappet cams in the 80's without using any zinc "goop" with zero failures.

 

I am a pilot and I do understand how things work... most of the expensive parts that people love to run have been copied and ripped off by china, so just because it's cheap doesn't necessarily mean it's crap. I am trying to build a hotrod on a budget and also support a family. I don't need to run the most expensive setup possible, I just want to get the thing going down the road.[/QUOTE]

When you're read to fire it up: Get the #1 cylinder on TDC of the compression stroke. Stab the distributor in to where the vacuum pod is pointing straight forward towards the radiator and the rotor is pointing to about the 1 O'clock position (where the #1 terminal is on the cap) . Line the balancer's timing marks up to 12* BTC. (Using a breaker bar and 15/16" socket on the balancer bolt) Next, put the cap on and wire the plug wires to the plugs, leaving the #1 wire loose at the plug end. Using a Phillips screw driver, stick the end in the #1 wire terminal and hold it next to a ground. Have someone turn the ignition "ON" (don't crank it) and slowly rotate the distributor back and forth, watching for the spark between the screw driver and ground. When it sparks, immediately stop rotating the distributor and lock it down. If you do this correctly, the engine should fire up right off the bat when cranked and when you hit it with a timing light, the timing should be dead on.

 

Sounds great thank you very much

 

If you ever need someone to "render target services" for you, I got to be pretty good doing that for A10's out of England AFB back in the 80's. They used to "hunt" logging equipment, 18 wheelers and other pieces of heavy equipment. I got nailed on a Cat 966 one day after I slalomed back and forth across a log yard, then he gave my a "flyby" with his thumb up after "killing me"

 

Haha very nice