Just change my T belt on my 98 base. Changed over to manual tensioner. Cams are set to TDC (arrows up and line markings flat with head). Fly wheel is set to TDC (white mark). Dizzy is pointing to piston one to fire. I put everything back together. Drive it around the block and runs like crap. Feels like I'm towing a boat or two.

The 1st time me and my bro-in-law put the belt on, the timing of the cams were 180 degrees off from the crank, we did not start it. We changed it around and after 4 more tries, got the belt on with all the line/dots in its place. I did start it up when it was off by one tooth before we got it right.

Any ideas why it runs like crap?

 

one or both of your cams are a few teeth off time. i did this on mine, i had the intake cam off by a few teeth. make sure you are using all 3 marks on the cam gear to triangulate one point on the gear. try marking it with white out or a silver sharpy so you can see it clearly. do you have adjustable cam gears?

 

Stock gears. when I line up al the lines on the gears ( the dimpled lines) they all line up with the head, nice and flat. Flywheel is set at the white mark.
Also, how should the lobes be pointing? Any ideas?

 

i was working on a sohc stratus last week and it ran similar to what u described. the problem ended up being the cam gear moved about 1/2 an inch on the camshaft. its supposed to be pinned but the pin broke. it took me forever to figure out the problem becuase all the timing marks lined up perfectly and it never crossed my mind that the the cam gear and cam may be missaligned until i did a compression test which revealed low on all cylinders. I'd suggest doing a compression test and if thier low then you know the timing must be off.

 

Going out to buy a compression tester right now. How can I tell if the cams are linesd up with the cam gear? and pins, marking or anything?

 

Compression test done; 1-4: 185,190,200,200.
Drove the car to pickup the compression tester, too much snow so can't really tell how it feels like, but does not feel normal for sure.
Went on the highway, try to hit vtec, vtec hits higher and louder than before. Also heard a sound like tick tick tick, I backed off the gas and the sound went away.
If the balance shafts arent lined up,tdc, it will just shake a little bit more huh. But it wont harm the car?
Also, if it is just by chance off by 1 tooth, the car should still run fine right? Since there are adjustable cams that retards or advances 1-2 tooth, no harm right?

 

the flywheel has two marks, one at tdc and one 14 degrees advanced.

take it apart, take out the first spark plug, stick a fishing rod in it or something long and not steel, then rotate the engine by hand until the rod is at its tallest point, this is tdc, check the flywheel them, but dont worry about it, and the notch in the timing belt gear should be pointing up.

 

All that you have mentioned has already been done and double checked. I must be missing something. The advanced marking on the flywheel is red, so naturally I didnt put it there .

 

honestly its silly telling someone you've done something wrong, then when they tell you how to do it right, tell them you've already done that.

if you did it right this post wouldn't exist.

if the timing is on then its on, if not, you did it wrong, that is how to do it right. you either didnt do it right, or you didnt do something else right.

changes are you didnt do it right.

have you checked the base timing with a light at idle? that could be it i guess

 

I guess thats my last thing to do, a timing light. I'm just telling the reader what has been done and what has been checked. Things can go wrong and I'm just eliminating out potential steps I've forgotton or screwed up on.

 

Another possibility from your description could be the plug wires in the wrong order.