Originally Posted by dparker
Check your compression to see if its low. You might have a broke cam pin. The slack in the 3 bolts on the cam will give you around 10 degrees of retard, making you have to advance the ignition timing to compensate the difference. If the cam pin is broke your compression will be down 30 to 40 psi. I heard that some gear drives are subseptable to breaking pins. I know it sounds far out there but check it out.
take care
Yes not that far out,when I ran my Pete Jackson gears I found that the bolts needed to be tightened more & locked.This of course broke the pin & made the idle very erratic,fortunately valve-piston clearance was adequateto do no damage there. I used loctite to glue the bolts.I'm sure that wire or tabs would also be fine.I put the loostening down to harmonics (can't be definate) but have never ever had a chain come loose