cam timing trouble

Im trying to set the cams on a 76 kz900. On my exhaust side if I put the cam on the sproket parallel to the head my lobes will not be facing each other in the parallel postion. but If I put the lines at 12 oclock and 6 then the lobes will be parallel with each other.

I set time the way the book says ex lines level with head surface and and the intake on the 28 mark. I didnt have compression on the 1 and 2 but had 90 psi on 3 4. I just did a top end rebuild, rings, cylinder honed and valve job. bike ran before tear down. any help would be greatful.
is this right and which pin should I start on for the 28 count? thanks

ex side with mark straight up and down.


intake with marks



lobes facing each other.

Looks like to me you may be a tad high on exaust, make sure 1 piston is top dead center, the first pin closest to the head isnt counted, start with the next pin, In your pic you can see the arrow, looks like this > thats your mark.

You probably need to run the overhead, after a valve job, the shim hieghts would change, this should bring your compression back up too!

Its hard to judge distance on a picture, after looking closer I think your dead nuts on!

what you mean by run the overhead?

well I found my problem on the compression issue. I took the head off and looked at my valves and since I set the timing wrong I smashed the valves. Now I have to go buy new ones.I went by the manaul on setting the time and it back fired on me. when I set the cams again I will do it like above. I hope thats the right way!

lemo32 wrote: Looks like to me you may be a tad high on exaust, make sure 1 piston is top dead center, the first pin closest to the head isnt counted, start with the next pin, In your pic you can see the arrow, looks like this > thats your mark.

Looked that way to me too.

So as for my ex cam line being set at 12 and 6 o clock that's right ? My manual says the lines need to be flat with the head . But if I do that then my lobes won't line up right.