swizz977

i recently did a mini me swap on my 2000 civic dx d16y7 motor i put a y8 head on it
when i was doing the timing light i noticed the marks were off to the left and i had to advance my distributor all the way towards the firewall and it still was off a little..
i took some pictures of my timing belt tdc marks if you guys can tell me if you think i skipped a tooth.. here i have the crank pulley on the tdc white mark inbetween the pointers..
now i was under the assumption that the cam gear marks were just supposted to be even with the head but now that i look there are marks on the actual timing belt cover which the left one looks to be lower then the head and the right side looks to be higher then the head so thats where i might of got confused

swizz977

ok well it says to line it up to the head.. so i guess my mechanical timing is right.. i dont know why they put those arrows like that on the timing belt cover then.. like it should be a little below 9 oclock and a little above 3 o clock....

swizz977

also when i put my distributor all the way retard it basically feels like its going to stall out like its misfireing and going to just bog down and die.. but anywhere from the middle and all the way advance it runs fine..

swizz977

ok so i looked at my y7 head and those are lined up with the arrows on the timing belt cover not with the deck of the head so if i retard my cam gear 1 tooth will that advance my timing?

swizz977

**** sorry guys i didnt realize there was a **** on the timing light.. still though my other head was lined up with the arrows on the cover not the deck.. also i need my distributor fully advance to get 9.5 degrees from the timing light

swizz977

if i were to take the belt off and turn the cam gear one tooth towards the front of the car so it lines up on the timing belt cover would that advance my timing?

swizz977

heres the light

TomCat39

You want your light to be zero. Then you can set your ignition timing to the middle of the three marks in the sights if you have set your mechanical timing correctly.

The arrows on the back timing cover are probably for the D16Y5 vtec-e motor like they are on the 5th gen's D15Z1.

The parts are modular and are used on multiple motors so have different mechanical timing marks and procedures depending on the motor being timed.

Ignition timing stays the same through the series of motors though.

Just make life easier, set your timing light to zero advance, set your mechanical timing and then time with the timing marks on the pully and the sites on the timing cover based on plug wire #1.