Pelican Parts Forums - Chain housing alignment to cam center

As you guys may have read about my worries over the chain housing alignment to cam center in another thread (http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-engine-rebuilding-forum/605372-camshaft-end-plate-alignment-question.html), I have some info that may help others.

I spoke to the only Porsche shop here in SA and talked with the owner last night (he is factory trained from many years ago and his father was a Porsche tech too from the early days).

He stated that the misalignment of the chain housing to the cam centers is very common and not a big deal. He has several different chain housing gaskets in stock to adjust for this and also uses a belt sander if need be. As Wayne states, he has also ran engines without the gaskets at all but recommends using them and machining/sanding the housings thinner to accomodate the gasket.

Only his race engines does he use a jig that centers the housing on the cam and then figures how much to machine away for a perfect, concentric fit.

He went on to say that he has seen misalignments in not only the concentricity of the housings to the cams but even forward and aft due to others sanding by hand obviously not holding it square. This misalignment makes the end plate either pull the housing towards the engine in a forward direction or sometimes he has seen the housings actually resting on the air guides of the cylinders they were so far off!

Even his worst case where he received an engine that had the thrust washer rubbing against the camshaft end-plate on one engine didn't even create any ill effects when he tore it down from what he had seen.

He wasn't advocating ignoring the misalignment (do what you can), but that it wasn't a huge problem either from his experience.

Hope this may help someone in the future.