Digital angle gauge for measuring crank angle
 

Has anyone used a magnetic digital angle gauge (such as the ones used for wood working) stuck to a piece of steel angle bolted to the end of the crank to measure the angle?

There are some high precision 360-degree gauges, like the Mitutoyo 950 ($260 from amazon) that are accurate to 0.1 degrees - and that's a name I'd trust to be honest with their specs.

Any reason anyone can think of why this would be a bad idea? I'm no mathematician, but based on some quick sketches, and sketchup models, it seems to me that any object on a rotating plane will rotate by the same number of degrees regardless of the center point of rotation for the plane vs the center of the object - so you can really locate the gage anywhere (since you are always measuring relative angles).

Am I missing something? Anyone tried this? I love Stomski and their tools are top-notch, but it just seems like one of these Mitutoyo gages would have a lot more applications around the home/shop than a DigiDix!

I see the tact you are going using the Mitutoyo but buy the cheaper Amazon unit for suspension & other uses. Buy a rotary encoder and 3d printed adapters as found here. https://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-used-parts-sale-wanted/1040125-fs-digital-degree-wheel.html
Plus you can zero out the encoder and the level will be upside down at times.

What’s wrong with a a degree wheel? Cheap and accurate the bigger the better

If you want a really nice well thought out tool, just buy a STOMSKI RACING's DigiDix™ - Digital Degree Wheel. I believe the 3d printed versions are inferior knock offs of his design. I like to support people like Steve so they keep innovating and helping us keep these cars going. Steven Stomski has made a bunch of great tools that make life easier when working on our old aircooled motors. He has some tools for newer ones too. His cam timing video, using this tool, is really good as well. I used this tool along with his video to time my cams. I have several of his tools.

https://www.stomskiracing.com/products/digidix

What makes you believe so? It's not possible for someone to improve on or arrive at a similar solution from a different angle? Have you tried the tool linked above in comparison with Stomski's? I have used the tool in the first link. It was very good and easy to use. I agree that good producers should be supported, but in a "free market" sometimes price point matters when the quality is similar or the same. Some people will choose Snap On because of the product and others will choose Craftsman because it can do the same job equally as well. There is room in the market place for both players.

Not really wanting to hijack a thread with a debate, but yes, I have tried it. It works well and is certainly less expensive, but quality goes to Stomski. So, I recommend the Stomski version, but I like nice tools and tend to buy quality over price more times than not.

That said, I gave my recommendation above to the thread starter, others can comment, and he can make his decision. I won't comment further on this.

Ha ha - it's funny, I didn't have notifications turned on for this thread and I didn't even realize I had posted it! Shortly after posting it, and giving it some more thought I realized that a digital angle gauge would only work if the engine was perfectly perpendicular to the earth - so yeah - not a good idea!

I ended up buying the "knock-off" 3D-printed digidix from Roger, but still have yet to drop my engine and try it out. The thing about this is that it's under very little stress, and it doesn't need to be perfectly centered to properly measure a 360' rotation (seems counter-intuitive, but if you model it you will see) so the fact that it's $300 less than the stomski for something I might use 2 or 3 times in my life seems OK to me. My wife and I have a saying we use often; "the cheapest option never is", and I firmly believe that, especially with regard to tools, but this Roger's 3D-printed mount system was not the cheapest option for degree measurement, and I think it will do the job well. Time will tell...

As a side-note, I have all of the other Stomski tools for TDC and cam timing!

When the engine in my SC popped I decided it would be way more fun to buy all the specialty tools and do it myself than pay someone else. The Stomski tools and videos played a big part in the success of the rebuild and I've used them again on other engines. I don't fault anyone for using a different version - there were plenty of other PXXX tools I cobbled together or bought off ebay that worked fine.