V-man, years a go I worked as fleet manager and we had some 300 cid trucks; we found the o.e.m.cams to average 8 degrees retarded....when the engines were refreshed we used an offset woodruff key to advance the cam accodingly....I haven't used one in years but they may still be available.......I just checked an 8-1018 straight gear set for the chevy and it has 54 teeth on the cam gear; that computes to 6.66 degrees per tooth...as dude pointed out you need to know where you are first before proceeding....fats


fats