tlarimer

iTrader: (3)

Background on the vehicle:
1998 Civic Ex sedan 192,xxx miles, 5 spd

It's my brother inlaws car, been sitting since early 2011, failed smog and was leaking fluid out of every seal and gasket.

He had the distributor replaced pre-2011 with an aftermarket/parts store distributor, only marking legible are TD and below that 2222.

Fast forward, he brought the car over to have me fix all the seals, gaskets, leaks, etc. I noticed the distributor was rotated all the way back, away from the front of the engine, bottomed out on it's adjustment, didn't think much about it at the time.

I replaced all seals, gaskets, timing belt, waterpump, etc. and know that the mechanical timing is set right, I even pulled the upper timing cover off again to check after I couldn't adjust the timing to the correct mark.

I jumped the service connector in the passenger footwell, hooked up my timing light, restarted car and rotated the distributor to set the timing, it bottoms out again and timing is not quite to the first mark closest to the TDC mark. I shut everything down, pull the upper timing cover and check mechanical timing, dead on where it's supposed to be. TDC mark on crank pulley lines up and both marks on the cam sprocket are flush with the top of the cylinder head.

I don't have another distributor to test on it, but I am really leaning towards this aftermarket distributor being the culprit.

I can't think of any tests that would get me anywhere, because the dist works, just can't adjust the timing to within specs. I am really baffled at this point....

Any advice or suggestions?