Thread: car won't start after cam install

hey guys,

we installed a set of kelford 184 c cams yesterday and after doing so the car wouldn't start. opened the valve cover to re-check timing and it seemed good.
The car tends to start but shuts down and sometimes backfires.

Any clues of what could be wrong ?

not sure if it is just a rumor but i heard after market cams sometimes both will have the spot in the end that the distributor goes in, could it be possible they are in the wrong spots (if thats true)?


oh and did you reshim for those cams? not sure if thats a must or what..

yes both cams have the distributor fitting, I had a hard time figuring out which one is the intake and exhaust


I was told that by looking at the dowel pins I could know which one was intake and exhaust



the one on the right is supposed to be the intake the one on left the exhaust.

We did re shim everything and also installed super tech valve springs and retainers, adjustable cam gears and new valve seals..

Here is a picture of them installed

Yeah, looks like you have them in the right places and in time if you are sure the motor is at TDC. I know ve pullies have a habit of separating on the outer ring so be sure your pistons are at tdc by sticking a long rod down the cylinder to double check the tdc mark on the pulley is really relating to actual tdc. If it seems off then your pulley outer ring may have separated.

Make sure there are 20 pins between the dots. Im not sure on those cam gears if the deg line is representative to the dot on the gear because if so it looks like you have 19 pins between the degree main line on the cam gears. Looks like the intake cam might be off one tooth if that is the case. I would double check.

yeah kinda looks like it's off, hope you rotated it first by hand before you just used the starter to start the car.

On the second pic with the pins, looks to me like the can to the right is the intake cam and your left cam is the exhaust cam.what is the shim clearance with the kelford

Is the intake camgear mark sitting in between links?

It looks to be a link off. Take a picture of the cam sprockets straight on with the #1 piston and TDC (physical check).

Thanks for the replies, we did the timing again after that picture and in fact was off by a link, still didn't start. After much checking we tested ignition and it seemed off, the issue ended up being a distributor full of oil (sr20 ones tends to do this in my experience) and after we left it hanging while doing the cams it messed up the spark timing. We cleaned it, reassembled it and voila the car now starts.