I own a 1995 Honda Civic EX two door 1.6 vtec. I ran compression numbers after it began to get horrible economy and lack power. The engine has 340,000 Miles and my compression number from one to four were as follows: 58-173-132-130. From here I decided to do a head gasket, timing belt, and valve job. Upon taking the head off I discovered that the exhaust valves on Cyl. 4 were burnt and chipped hence the awful compression numbers (the injector was clogged and I think it was running lean) I had the head planed (0.007 of an inch off) I replaced the head gasket with a MAHLE and the others with Fel-Pro. I installed a Gates timing belt, water pump, and tensioner pulley. I was very very careful on timing but I had some qualms. Firstly, the cam has the three timing marks and one UP mark. Aligning the bottom timing mark (point down and slightly towards the front of the vehicle) with the arrow on the inner timing belt cover causes the rear horizontal mark to be 1/2 tooth off its arrow and the forwards horizontal timing mark to be 1/4 tooth off its mark. Obviously, when I timed the engine I set the crank to TDC based off the crank timing belt pulley's timing mark and the arrow cast into the oil pump body, and aligned the camshaft to the lower timing mark as described. I set tension in the belt and rotated the engine checking to make sure after several counter clockwise turns that the engine was still in time. It was.
When I finished putting it all back together and ignition timed the car, it still runs very rough and lacks power, as if the valves are still out of time. I removed the upper timing cover and aligning the white harmonic balancer tdc mark with the pointer sights on the lower timing belt cover, checked the cam timing marks. It was still dead on the lower timing mark with the UP mark still up...
I checked compression and the numbers now are 185-180-179-182 which I'm very pleased with, the fuel is a bit old, the ignition timing is set and all wires sparking, the plugs are clean and gapped correctly, and the injectors were all cleaned.
I even tried running it one tooth retarded and one tooth advanced and it ran even worse those times.
To give you an idea of how it runs, it feels like it missing on one cylinder and hardly has power to pull me up a mild rise in 2nd gear. (way worse than it was before)
I am at my wits end with it and besides the stodgy gas (which I'm slowly burning off and replacing with medium octane) I can think of nothing left to check.

-Mahoney

 

The crank pulley has four timing marks - the white TDC1 mark and the group of three marks used to set the ignition timing. Align the pointer with the white TDC1 mark to set the mechanical timing.

Use the alignment below for the cam timing:

 

Thank you for the reply, I’ve actually used this diagram several times in double and triple checking my timing, I indeed have all the marks that you see on the camshaft, but when the lower Mark is lining up with its pointer the upper marks don’t appear to be quite there but they are less than one tooth off, because all of the pointers are cast into the same piece of plastic I don’t see how that’s even possible. Thank you for the reply, I’ve actually used this diagram several times in double and triple checking my timing, I indeed have all the marks that you see on the camshaft, but when the lower Mark is lining up with his pointer the upper marks don’t appear to be quite there but they are less than one tooth off, because all of the pointers are cast into the same piece of plastic I don’t see how that’s even possible

and yes I have been using the white mark separate from the timing marks to set TDC on my crankshaft pulley.
as I said I tried it one tooth retarded and one tooth Advance but to no avail.

 

If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like you believe all the marks on the cam should align when TDC. This is not the case. When the crank pulley white mark is in the sites of the external timing belt cover pointer, ONLY the bottom mark of the cam gear will align with the bottom plastic pointer as shown in the diagram, the horizontal marks are for a different engine and the UP also corresponds to a different engine. Those will be a touch off. Up will be relatively up but not perfectly.

I hope this helps.

Also, there might be a very slight variance to this being the head was planed but should be negligible.

 

Ahh, this is the information I have been missing. I suppose those horizontal timing marks are for the d15 series.
Either way, it is timed correctly and as I knew the lower pointer and mark to be tdc I've timed it to that. I discovered that the engine was not running on cyl. 1 or 4. The plugs were wet and the spark plug wires were sparking like crazy on the tester. I also knew it had compression. So at last I swapped injectors 1 and 4 with 2 and 3. Lo and behold the engine still only ran on two but now it was misfiring on cyl 2 and 3. I suppose my injectors are spraying out spark or such a thick pattern that it wont ignite well.
I've ordered injectors and I'll let you know what becomes of the repair.

 

Before you buy new injectors:

Check the power wires for the two non-firing injector connectors for battery voltage.

Check the ground wires for the two non-firing injector connectors for an open (break) between the connector and ECU.