I just finished a rebuild on my stock 91 Civic SI D16A6. The old distributor was making alot of squeaking noises and did not spin smoothly so I got a rebuilt one at Autozone. Now I can't seem to get the timing adjusted correctly. If I retard the distributor as far as it will go, I'm still at around 20 degrees advanced or about 4 degrees to the left of the 3 marks. The first thing I checked was the cam timing and its right on the money. The plug wires are in the correct order. I tried two different timing lights with the same result. The car seems to run fine although it has a slight vibration at idle. Is it possible Autozone sold me the wrong distributor? I set them side by side and they looked identical but I did not compare the hole in the shaft for the rotor. Hopefully they still have my core so I can go back and compare. Help?

 

Been there done that. You have to look at the timing belt position for the A6. The cam gear is one tooth off. I believe you need to turn the cam counter-clockwise.

Find the spec's someone has it around here or try the search

 

Thanks for the reply. The timing belt is lined up correctly, that was the first thing I verified with my Helms manual.

 

Yep, you're off a tooth. I had this problem as well. The previous owner changed the timing belt but used the D15B2 timing specs.

Your cam sprocket should have three notches and "UP" written on it. For the D15B2 timing, you line the two notches that are across from each other up with the surface of the head, whereas the D16A6 timing uses the notch that is offset from the other notches on the sprocket, you line that notch up with the mark on the back of the lower timing cover.

So it sounds like you've used the B2 guidelines and just need to advance the belt one tooth. Although I could be wrong..... That's just what fixed my problem

 

It turned out to be that the rebuilt distributor was clocked wrong. I loosened the three tork screws and turned the crank sensor to match my old distributor and viola, I was able to time the engine correctly. Idles better as well.