so after replacing the head and futzing endlessly with the timing chain, i finally got her running. went in to do a valve lash adjust after ~600 miles on the new cam and discovered my cam chain was quite slack. while rotating the cam by the bosses i felt it turn a few degrees as the slack picked up in each direction.
when i replaced the head, the chain was super tight - so much so that i had to lever the cam sprocket on with a big wrench. it seemed too tight to me, but everything i read stated