I bought a 97 accord 4 door sedan, sadly not vtech, so it has a 2.2L 4 cylinder engine. Idk what the previous owner had done to it but the woodruff key for the harmonic balancer pulley had been totally sheer off and the pulley and belts came off on a main street and the car shut itself off (I'm assuming the computer forces it to die). Because I was on a main road I panicked and started the vehicle again to get it on a side road. It took me 2 weeks to get the new darn key in for the new pulley, all my reading says there's 3 notches to line up but there's actually 4 and the 4th being it has to line up with the timing belt. The vehicle ran fine before, slightly rough idle from a minor misfire and dirty iacv, but I finally got the woodruff key in and get it to start with the new pulley and belts and now the vehicle roughs so rough I feel it's ganna throw a rod. If there's no throttle being applied the car dies and smoke came out between the back of the engine and firewall. Did starting the car without the pulley and key ruin my timing or is there another position I can align the pulley and key with. I'm about to get towed and have no option but to push it or fix it in 3 days

 

Bump for this. I got my recent accord swap doing the exact same thing!