Well I found these pictures of another misaligned cam. The tool used is one that was actually purchased and apparently it uses the sides of the leveling blocks to align the cams. Note in the pic, the green area is where the tool is supposed to bolt together. The red area is where it's supposed to sit flush on the head:
I also read someone's post on another forum that said all of the s50/s52 cams were cut this way. I find that hard to believe, but it's comforting knowing that I'm not the only person who's encountered this and atleast I know I'm not going crazy.
So I'm starting to think that since it's really close to the way it was before I started working on it, perhaps the tops don't have to be level? I mean heck, it ran fine this way for 8 or so years right? Maybe I'll trim some more material off of my tool so it'll slide all the way down onto the cam blocks. It just seems janky that BMW would let a defect like this slide through their production line. Apparently, I'm not the only one with funky cams
