So, the cam synchro is driven by the cam gear at the back of the engine. It looks a lot like the bottom half of a distributor, but the cap/rotor have been replaced with a cam synchro sensor that sends signal to the coil pack and tells it when/where to fire. Besides controlling ignition timing, the synchro also has a shaft out of the bottom that drives the oil pump, so if the synchro fails, your oil pump stops pumping and the engine has no oil circulation. That smokes an engine in no time. Synchros have a bearing at the bottom that can get starved for lubrication and seize. It usually chirps before it seizes completely.
The cam synchro isn't actually on the lower intake. The lower intake actually contours around the synchro which is mounted to the top of the engine block. It's possible to swap intake manifolds without touching the synchro. If you installed the synchro from the old engine into the new donor, you should've matched the orientation of the new one with the orientation of the old one. There are special tools for this. If you switched out synchros between engines, and special care wasn't taken to insure alignment, then it's definitely possible that it's misaligned. If you didn't touch the synchro at all, and it's the synchro from the 07 that's still in the 07 block, it's less likely to be misaligned because it was probably running well enough when the donor truck met its fate.
I think the Haynes manual I used had a procedure for making sure the cam synchro alignment was correct, but it involved setting the engine to TDC and some other things that are easier to do with the engine on a stand than in the truck. It's been almost 10 years since I did mine so details are hazy. If you didn't touch the synchro, I'd look at other, easier things first before tackling synchro alignment or replacement.
[/QUOTE
My mistake. You’re right. The cam synchro is attached to the block, not the manifold. Thank you for the detailed explanation. I picked up this project to increase my knowledge and understanding of this stuff. Thanks to you guys, I’m learning a lot as I bring this truck back to life.