I tightened the belt with the coat hanger method so its pretty darn tight....I got it as close as I could. The timing belt cover is dead on with the balancer when the cam gears are as shown in the picture. Just making sure its close enough or so I need closer?

 

make sure cam gear settings are at zero

 

They are....

 

those cams look a lil off, but i dont think its enough to be a tooth off, do you have a pic of the crank gear mark?

 

if your not planning to adjust the cam gears for dyno use. i would try putting stock gears on and see if it line up

 

I am planning on adjusting the gears during dyno tuning...

 

anyone else? I was always under the impression that you couldn't really get it perfect anyway. Its not a big deal for me to keep playing with it, but the belt is tensioned perfectly right now and timing looks pretty decent. Tuners...any advice?

 

it is fine. My cam gears do the exact same thing but it will be fine just like that.

 

i dont usually trust the marker on the timing belt cover, I usually use the screwdriver in the spark plug hole method to find TDC. and dont tighten the belt too much it can put too much strain on the belt, water pump and oil pump. and make sure you rotate the crank 5-6 times to "seat" the belt and make sure it stays lined up.

 

yea I've turned the crank quite a bit to make sure of all that. I didn't tighten the belt too much, there is still some deflection. I will do the screw driver into the cylinder to see how close it is. I didn't really trust the belt cover either because the timing belt pulley looked dead on with the oil pump before I put the cover on. Thanks

 

FYI, tightening the timing belt more than spec will cause your cams to start eating up the head near the cam gears because its pulling down on the cams too much and there is no room for the oil film on the bottom side of the cam holder there.

why would you want it tighter than its suppose to be according to honda??

 

it seems like some motors will always line up like that no matter what. Its surely not a tooth off or anything.

 

the screwdriver in the cylinder will only check the crank at TDC...and the crank mark on the pulley is pretty reliable...just use the engine compression (i usually turn the crank about 5 teeth) and tighten down the tensioner...should be good to go...and putting in a new tensioner spring is a good idea for this method.

 

The belt isn't too tight by any means...its probably within spec but I will have my tuner look at the tightness and deflection when I get there...But like I said, there is plenty of deflection. It's not like the belt is so tight I can barely budge it