Is There a way to find top dead center on a 350 with the motor in the car and the cylinder heads on? If more info is needed just ask.

Thanks in advance

 

A piston stop that threads into the spark plug hole and a degree wheel.

 

when i did this for my motor i had the valve cover off, so i could watch the valves open and close, turn the crank with a wrench and watch to see when the exhaust valve closes and your in the general vicinity of tdc, then from there i used a small screwdriver in the spark plug hole and feel the piston come up slowly and see where it stops and starts to come back down again, fairly easy, just dont jam the screw driver in there, be gentle

 

pull the coil off...crank it until you see the yellow dash...then take a big rachet and put a socket on the center crank pulley nut...turn the motor over manually until the yellow dash lines up with 0. Its quite easy. I had to do this when i did my distributor.

 

The only problem with doing it that way is you run the risk of being 180 degrees out.

-Jim

 

Yup. You also are relying on the timing marks to be correct. That isnt always true, especially with an aftermarket crank, aftermarket timing chain cover, or aftermarket balancer. Even stock balancers wont line up properly if they rotate on the plastic dampener.

The best way is the piston stop and a degree wheel from what I hear. another method is if you have previously degreed in the cam and you know the actual intake centerline. You can relocate the ICL, set the degree wheel, then rotate it back to zero degrees TDC.

 

put some paper in sparkplug hole bump motor over with starter and the cylinder pressure will push the paper out at top dead center.

 

Visually seeing or feeling the piston through the spark plug hole will not tell you when the crank is at TDC because of piston dwell. The piston can be at the top for a few degrees of crank rotation.

The only way to find the exact TDC is with a piston stop and a degree wheel. Using a piston stop through the spark splug hole requires removing the rockers for that cylinder or they'll hit and damage the stop.

Using the timing marks to find TDC is only good enough to adjust valves if they are not checked against a degree wheel. As mentioned above, even factory marks can be inaccurate. A couple of years ago after I built an engine with an aftermarket timing pointer, I set the timing and left it alone. Later when trying to adjust the total advance, I found it was over 40* advanced and ran even better when I bumped it up even more.

Installing a degree wheel to located TDC, I found the timing marks were out 8*. That 40* advance was really only 32*

 

yea true...worked for me 6 times though lol. I stabbed the dizzy a tooth off like 6 times and had to keep resetting it to tdc.

 

I've always took out plug 1 and put a finger over it with the distributor unplugged and a guy bump the ignition until i felt the puff of air, lol. Don't laugh it has worked everytime for me.