Hello everyone, I've encountered a dilemma that I'm not sure how to approach. I recently acquired a 96 civic hatch with a built ls/vtec engine set up. Car ran fine for the first ~2k miles of my owning it (sorta babying it as I get to know the car). Anyhow, I was working on the car and re assessing the bushings on the motor/trans mounts as I was having a little more wheel hop than usual. Car was running/idling and I went in to shake the engine with my hands and my idiot self grabbed where the cam gears are and my middle finger was hacked up nasty (its fine now lol). The car sputtered and died soon after the incident.

Now ever since then, when I start the car it idles funny. It sort of bogs at a lower RPM (like 500-700ish) than usual (which would jump from 1-1.3k until it warmed up and settled at about 900-1k or so) and I had to give it some gas to keep it from dying while idling. I turned it off and haven't started it since. This is not like it used to idle (which wasn't great but once it warmed up it evened out).

The car has an ATI damper installed and I put it to TDC at the crank (with the pulley still on, and following the mark on the pulley/plastic cover as noted below). The Golden Eagle cam gears appear to be off a bit, maybe a tooth at the exhaust side. The thing is I have never taken a picture of the cam gears at crank TDC before so I am not sure if this is how it was before (the car had been extensively tuned before). That being said this is my first turbo honda, so my general Honda knowledge is low, specifically mechanical timing things. I've perused the forums a bit and I've got a general grasp on what I need to do next, but I wanted to go ahead and post this and see if anyone has any other input. Thanks everyone for reading ~

 

Your engine is currently out of mechanical time and this is why it runs poorly. It was fine... and now it's not. Get it back in time and all will be back to normal.

 

Thanks man. I just wanted to get some verification before I move forward with fixing it..still learning about this car. I'll go ahead and loosen up the tensioner and adjust the cam gears while at crank TDC.

Would you recommend I remove the pulley to verify pulley/belt cover TDC is the same as crank/oil pump TDC? Or should I just do the screwdriver method at cylinder 1? I figure I may as well verify stuff while I'm at it..last thing I want is to screw s*** up lol

 

For what it's worth on these engines it's VERY easy to see down into the cylinders with the spark plugs and boots off.

 

Roger that. I’ll take a look and verify everything is lined up the way it should ~

 

I wouldn't take anything more than necessary apart unless you have to... a long screwdriver in the #1 spark plug hole will give you all of the proof you need to verify that the crankshaft is at TDC. I personally wouldn't even loosen the tensioner... I would "Tip" the offending camshaft out/down and rotate it slightly, set it back down in the journals, and then re-torque the cam caps/rails.

 

Why would doing all that work be easier than just resetting the timing belt?

If youre going to be working on this car loosen the belt completely and redo the timing. Theres plenty of youtube videos specific to b engines to learn from.

I can re adjust a timing belt in about 10 minutes. For a first timer itll probably take you an hr because you’re nervous and will want to triple check everything. Ill tell you this. Unless you set the timing wayyy off the valves wont come near the pistons on the secondary lobes of the cams.
Take your time and dont over tq any bolts and youll be good

 

Appreciate the responses everyone. I’ll go ahead and verify TDC with cylinder 1, and do the above method when I get some time. It gives me a chance to replace the leaky valve cover gasket while I’m there too

 

Alright so this was the best I was able to get it after rotating the exhaust camshaft 1 tooth "advanced" i.e counter clockwise using the method @JRCivic1 suggested. Looks much better, but it isn't perfect as you can see. Pending the new gasket/RTV to cure, I'll see how it runs tomorrow. Everything was torqued to spec including the valve cover bolts so it should be tight. Used RTV/honda bond equivalent where needed on the cam caps. Hopefully this fixes the funny idle.

Doing this makes me want to put in some Pro1 camshafts to replace the ITRs and get the car retuned. Working on this car is way easier than working on my VW GTI, dang. Cheers

 

If you want to sell the type r cams ill take them. Ill also trade for gsc t1 cams i have. I can't use them on my small turbo

 

I’ll make sure to let you know man. No plans to swap cams very very soon, but I’ve been thinking about it. Cheers

 

How much you want for those t1s

Putting pro1s in will be significantly more work. Will have to degree the cams in to ensure for tdc and v2v

 

Make me a reasonable offer. I wont say no

 

A chicken dinner and half a lap dance.

 

The car idles much better now. Does its usual **** as it warms up and RPMs jump up and down a few hundred then finally settles once its really nice and warmed up.

I was looking into those secondary timing belt tensioners that bolt up to where the PS bolts are...I can see how it is added insurance. The car is not running one currently but as it stands at its alleged ~550whp, is there any real benefit to running one? Visually, I can see the timing belt sorta vibrate at its anterior side (when standing in front of car) at certain RPMs as I rev the engine out a bit. I really want to prevent any future jumps at the belt/gear if I can (short of not sticking my finger in between the cam gears). I figure I'd put one on, and have to where its just barely touching the belt to prevent those vibrations when the car is running up the RPMs..

 

PMd