rak511

Its me again... haha... here's where I'm at... finally got the crankshaft pulley off, and the lower timing cover... went to loosen the tensioner pulley and loosened it pretty far out where the washer could slide back and forth and noticed that the belt was not loosened... being my fist time doing this loosened it more... nothing... asked a buddy and he asked if the spring was missing... of course it was... but that doesn't help my problem... soooooo here's the problem tensioner pulley spring is missing, but the belt was still tight and ran fine (until my oil light started flashing, but still ran normal), I traced the number on the gates timing belt and it turned out to be a non vtec timing belt, I looked at the water pump today thinking they were mix matched but it says 22t as in im assuming 22 teeth... I ended up taking the bolt all the way off the tensioner pulley so I could remove the belt... why was it so tight on there without the spring? anyone else ever see this? And the slit in the pulley where it slides to tighten and loosen was all the way at the tightened position, even with the bolt loosened

rak511

scratch that... I had it mix matched... figured out my own problem... timing belt is non vtec, and water pump is 22 teeth vtec... So heres my question... can I use a non vtec water pump and fix it (I already have a non vtec water pump at my house that came with the car). Or should I spend the money and get both a new vtec timing belt and water pump... The non vtec timing belt is also new... maybe 500 miles on it so I really didn't want to replace it. Thanks

m4xwellmurd3r

Edit hah re read the title.

Get a vtec belt.

It sounds like someone forced an ls belt onto the engine, thats why the pulley was so tight

rak511

Nah... idk how much you know about ls vtec but ls timing belt = ls water pump and vtec timing belt = vtec water pump... you cant switch them... that's what someone did with mine

m4xwellmurd3r

Ls vtec, 22t water pump already installed. Get a vtec belt like I said.

Someone managed to cram a non vtec belt onto your vtec engine

I understood everything you said.

1ls/vtec

You can go both ways, either buy a VTEC water pump or install the non vtec pump. You just have to make sure that u r using matching parts. I am running a stock ls WP with a LS belt and have been for over 60K miles. I believe that VTEC belts are 126 tooth and non VTEC belts are 125, cant remember.

rak511

Yep got it back up and running... my friend that did the timing belt stretched the non vtec belt to make it work with the vtec water pump... not the first time I heard of him rigging stuff together... its done right now... went and got a new non vtec waterpump and she's up and running again