Thanks redfish for your input but please dont confuse the situation. Dave, the only way I can think of that would make the chain hit the vct is if the cams were swapped. I know I said earlier that the left cam was shorter but I found that info on google and havent really been able to confirm it. So what I want you to do is now that the chain is off look down the phaser at the crank gear and see if they are aligned. Just like looking down a board to see if its straight. Now I'm not so sure if the left cam is the shorter one maybe its the right one thats shorter. The phaser and crank gear should line up exactly.

 

Thank you Redfish, this is good stuff. I'll get back to it tomorrow, It simply will not stop raining here in Chesapeake. Is there really no way to time this thing Reliably with cam shafts, and rollers installed? Maybe I should follow to a "T" the #4 video of FordtechMakuloco.

 

I timed 5.4s all the time with all the followers installed. Can do it in my sleep. Those videos follow Fords published procedure but its not absolutely necessary.

 

@70f100longbed, you are right and you nailed it. They do not line-up and there is no way the chain will go on with the shorter cam shaft on the drivers side. You can see this from the picture below:

 

Sweet. So sorry for the wrong info before. I'm glad you have enough attention to detail to notice it. It actually makes sense the shorter cam goes on the right to compensate for the cylinder offest between the banks.

 

No problem, you are wayyyy ahead on good sound advice. The good news is that you are able to reason out why to confirm the problem. Me....."it just don't look right". Anyhow, tomorrow after church, I will reverse the cams and see how it goes..Stay tuned.

 

@70f100longbed, I concur with your assessment that the cams are mounted on the wrong bank - based on the mis-alignment of bank2 phaser gear, (ie: cam being slightly shorter on front.)

This does call into question one important point NOW (mentioned in your post #140 above) on which I disagree.
I believe the keyway is aligned with the crankshaft throw for cylinder 1 and 5. Thus, when the keyway is aligned with center of crankshaft gear and phaser gear (11:00 o'clock), cylinder #1 is at TDC. ??? If this is the case ---- or perhaps under ANY circumstances --- when @gamboni tightened down the cam caps with cams swapped, how can we say what the state of pistons / valves were.

The point here: Is there a simple reliable way we can advise @gamboni to check to make sure no valve / piston contact occurred or valves bent???

 

 

That would be true in a perfect world. But the lobes on opposite cams are all scrambled if they are in fact swapped. So, all bets are off. That's the crux of my question to @70f100longbed - readily admitting I am not able to wrap my head around valve location if I split the firing order in half and swapped the halves end to end .... !!!!! ???? (LOL - but I'm really being serious, NOT laughing).

 

With the keyway at 12 then #1 and it's companion cylinder (I forgot which on that what is) will be at TDC so then there will be possible contact but with the key at 10-11 then none of the pistons will be at TDC so he should be good

 

Hopefully the cam journals/ caps are not mixed up also . I always steer people away from left-right to passenger -driver side .
@70f100longbed your knowledge exceeds mine I could not have led him thru all you have done . Let alone the reverse cam lobes . Just haven't had enough of them torn down to this point . Lets hope he is still okay . If he stayed at/near six oclock on timing dot with crank . He has done an intense remarkable deep job- a lot to get his head around .

 

@ Redifish Thanks for the compliment, it's not too bad, I have some mechanical skills. But yes I did get the caps all mixed up but I figured it out. I don't know if you all know this but I was looking at the caps and the cam shaft under magnification to try an match groves like on Forensic files. I noticed on the top of the caps is a very small ( very small you got to wipe it off to see it) engraving showing which cylinder the caps go on and in which way they face. When I saw this it was almost orgasmic "well not quite". So I took a picture of both and I think the engraving is exactly spot on. This picture below is from the # 4 cylinder end cap. I think they match and all the others did also.

 

Those lines are exactly why the caps shouldn't get mixed up each bearing surfaces has a unique wear pattern and mixing them up causes the cam to make new patterns which wears out the surfaces more plus each cap is machined to it's respective spot on the head and mixing them up causes the surfaces to not align exactly. Might be off a half thousandth from being round doesn't sound like a lot but it is in these close tolerance engines

 

Everybody screws up now and then but you did good figuring that out. Mine were engraved from the factory, maybe they had to redo something . Kind of threw me back . I will remember this trick for someone else..

 

@70F Thank you, we are back on track. Got the cams reversed yesterday. All lines are good now. Going to time the drivers side tonight.
@redfish yes the caps are engraved (but you can tell its by hand) so ya maybe, at some point, they did have to take it apart at the factory. I'll send a picture definelty a tiny engraver