Cam degreeing question

Regardless of what timing set you have, please do yourself a favor and degree it in...those marks on the crank gear may say 2* adv/ret or 0*, but if the cam is ground wrong, or the cam gear is dimpled on the wrong tooth, you could be as much as 16* off...been there done that.

With a mild aftermarket cam in a stock small block, you may not even notice 2*, but it certainly couldn't hurt on the low end unless you have issues with detonation-might help your mileage too. If your friend had issues with advancing their cam 4* and hated the result, their combo may've been wrong, or timing could've been off...or they may've actually retarded the timing by mistake...any number of reasons could've affected the outcome there.