OK, so unfortunatly, due to the Thanksgiving, I had a week long gap between measuring my valve clearance, and getting the needed shims to adjust. In a boneheaded move, i removed the CCTL and cam holder before verifying that i was at the correct TDC(I wasn't). Now i can just remove the cams from the chain and position the crank with the "T" aligned with the timing mark on the case. Then after adjusting the valves, replace the cams with the "EX" and"IN" level with the edge of the case, but how do i know if i'm at the correct TDC, or 180 off, know what i mean? Oh, shouldnt make much of a differece, but its a 02 F4i

 

As long as the #1 piston is up, that's TDC. You can put the cams in on the marks and that will make #1 on compression stroke. If you were to put the cams in 180 off, you would make #4 on compression stroke which would be okay because #1 will be on TDC between intake and exhaust stroke.

Remember that the crank turns twice to the cams once. The piston for each cylinder is up and down twice for every firing cycle.

 

Ahh, so in a nutshell, with the crank with the T at 2 oclock, #1 position is up, so i replace the cams as i described above, i'm golden right?

 

Yup. If that's your TDC your mark, then you're golden. You can verify that that the piston is up with a screwdriver or cut hanger in the spark plug hole. Move the crank each way a little, you will see when it stops moving up on each side of TDC. Split the difference for true TDC, the mark should line up.

 

Excellant. Thanks for the quick help!