ok im driving down the 405 fwy at normal speed and all of a sudden i hear a "pop. pop, pop, pop". i looked in my rear view mirror and my car is violently backfiring. i couldnt accelerate and my car died but i managed to get it back on and get to the nearest gas station. i couldnt start the car after that...all i heard was deep backfiring from the exhaust. the first thing that came to my mind was that the timing was off. then I put the crank to TDC and i looked at the cams and noticed that the etch marks on the sprockets were waaayyy off TDC. i alligned the cams today, and the car started for about a second and the backfiring started again.
what couldve happened? did i bend the valves, blow a piston? is there a way i could check for any of this without completely disecting the motor? TIA

 

My guess would be you blew your timing belt. Say bye-bye to your valves and pistons.

 

yeah i would agree

 

what kind of cam sprockets?? hope u wasn't using that sheap AEM 3 bolt stuff...

 

i got the JG cam sprockets. the timing belt is ok....remember i said that i was able to reallign my cams?

 

do a compression test on all 4 and if there is a 0 compresion on any of them then the valves are bent or there is no piston

 

also check to see if your tenisoner is in proper working order

 

The cam gears might have slipped, causing your valves to hit your pistons. You may not have tightened the bolts enough.

 

will bent valves cause the backfire? i havent done the compression test yet, im sure that something will come up wrong, but how do i check the piston? i need to know what to tell the buyer of my car.
also i noticed that when i took the spark plugs out, there was oil in the cylinder wall.. would kind of damage would that cause? TIA

 

to check the piston you need to take the head off

same for the valves

 

i forgot to mention that right before any of this happend i had a problem where my car would sometimes hesitate to accelerate. i would have to step on the gas twice to get it to accelerate properly. i was told that all i needed was to adjust my TPS. well right before the motor blew, this problem was happening. i steppped on the pedal about three times and when it finally acclerated, i heard the backfire. could this have cause my timing belt to slip?

 

Have you checked the tension (er) for the timing belt? If you could set the cam timing and then the tension wasn't there then the timing would jump, possibly bending valves.

That's one of the easiest checks then the compression test will tell all.