Hi,
So I recently rebuilt my ITR motor. I noticed right away the new skunk2 stage 1 cams are noisy when the motor is cold. It sounds rough, I'll take a video later so you all can hear it. Anyways I've lost 3 distributors now (TDC position sensor failure). Initially I thought my original dizzy just went out so I replaced it. Then the second died, I thought it was a wiring issue due to my recent OBD1 conversion and tune. It wasn't... I double checked the conversion harness 3 times, and both my OBD2B and OBD1 computers are having the same issue.

Which leaves me at my noisy intake cam. I'm thinking it's bent, installed wrong, maybe I screwed up the cam holder installation. I don't know. It sounds like I need to pull the Cam out and have a machine shop check it out. What do you all think?

This is the short version of events... Honestly I'm sick of dealing with it

I've driven it a couple times now. Once from Nor Cal to So Cal to get it home. Shortly after I made it to So Cal the Dizzy died. After I got it tuned and drove it home from the tuner the second Dizzy died. The 3rd Dizzy died last night, a few minutes after I had installed it.

Pisses me off to no extent having to pull the head apart, and worrying about what damage the ****ed intake cam has done to my cam holders..

 

There aren't too many things you can do wrong when installing a cam, short of misplacing the caps that is. I don't see how you would mess that up seeing as how you re-built the motor just fine. If it's not the wiring, I'd like to see what it turns out to be. I'm in for the answer!

 

Does anyone have a top down shot of their cam holders? The picture in the manual sucks.

I want to see the little numbers and arrows on the holders on a B16 or Type R motor.

 

Noise when cold is valve lash man. It cant be a cam cap they do not move its going to be something valve train related. Make sure you torque caps down right too that can calls some valve lash issues as well. If the noise goes away when hot then your valve lash is too loose so when the metal expands it takes up the gap. This problem leads to poor performance and gas mileage.

The dizzy problem is something else........ There is no freaking way a cam can break the electric components of a dizzy. There is not enough force going through it break it. Since the dizzy is an electrical component I am going to say you just got bad apples this time. If this problem keeps coming back Id check my wiring if I were you. And if your using some kind of gettohfied harness and jumper harnesses that can contribute to the problem, faulty wiring man you might have to sort it out, get an electric manual and a good volt meter and go at it.

 

Yeah I've been the route with the volt meter and diagrams. I've thought about bypassing the stock dizzy wiring completely. The noise is not a valve lash tap, it's hard to describe. Sounds like a rotating assembly with a lot of friction.... Here I made a video:

Note the problems it has starting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4cWUQF9f7Y

Kinda sounds like the tines on a tractor. (Type R tractor, w/DOHC VTEC)

 

A moment of silence fell upon the HT community...

 

Backwards? Cam holder markings are in red, cylinder numbers are in green. Looks *** backwards to me...

 

Maybe it's right... Adjusting for orientation...
I got this from some dude DIY cams post


Here's mine:


Here's the manual:

 

I can't friggen figure out why its throwing a TDC code.........

 

More updates...
Looks like the TDC sensor in my Stock dizzy is reading 391 Ohms. The replacement is reading 377 Ohms... I think maybe my original dizzy is dead, and the replacement dizzy is not right. My Stock dizzy is an TD-87U, the replacement is a TD-84. I'm going to try a different brand dizzy...

 

Does anyone know of a good Dizzy brand? I need a TD-87U Dizzy.

 

So this is fun.. my dizzy has two part numbers both are designated TD-87U
30100-P73-A01
30100-P73-A02

 

So more updates:
New Distributor #4 has arrived.

I'm going to pull the cams out and replace a leaky valve stem seal, I'll micrometer the cams and make sure they are in spec, and I'll probably dump them off at a machinist to have them look at it.

Hopefully I'll see the issue while I'm in there

 

Okay stem seals replaced... That sucked doing that in my apartment parking lot. Nosey freakin neighbors

There are some signs of wear at the dizzy end of the intake, but thinking that looks concerning... I'm thinking the dizzy issue is not mechanical.

I'm really hoping I don't need some after-market ignition system to make this work...

 

K How about this?
These cams have 600 miles on them:


I see two signs of wear on the intake cam that look a little abnormal. Any ideas what would cause this kind of wear? It almost looks like the end of the cam is slightly out of round. The exhaust cam looks great, and the rest of the intake cam looks pretty good as well.

Easier to see with no flash


normal wear for 600 miles?

 

So I found the issue. Actually I found many issues.

1) The cam noise was due to a glob of Honda bond that starved oil on the intake cam retainer next to where the Dizzy plugs in...

2) Replacing the valve stem seals fixed the blue smoke start ups

3) My cam gears had adjusted themselves to 6+ degrees negative Apparently skunk gears come zeroed, but they don't bother to tighten it. I should have checked, in the end my fault.

Fixing the cam timing resulted in 8 more ft/lb torque and 3 more max HP.

Note: readings are not corrected


4) The TDC sensor failure - This turned out to be a wiring issue with an anti-theft device I made. After a year of use the connections finally went out. There was never an issue with my Dizzy.

5) And to top things off, after I got her back on the road, and tuned, on the way home I got rear ended on the 101 in LA. It wasn't so bad, but now I have to deal getting my rear bumper fixed correctly

 

Man.... Glad you sorted it out. That sucks about getting rear ended.

 

|Your four years behind the times.