Started prepping the car to remove the head. Draining coolant, unhooking electrical connections, removed the header and unbolted the IM bracket (going to wait till I have all my parts before actually pulling it). Anyway I put then engine at TDC before I started. Lined up the crank mark (the white one) with the plastic pointer thingy on the engine. Made sure it was for the #1 cylinder by checking the distributor (rotor button when facing distributor pointed to the left and down). Then I noticed my cam gears . The up marks (not really up with STR cam gears) were cocked to the left a good bit, and the inside marks that are supposed to be lined up perfectly (left cam gear mark at the 3 o'clock, right cam gear mark facing it at the 9 o'clock) were off by about 3 teeth I'm guessing thats not exactly dead on.

Now I'm wondering what would actually cause it do be off so much. Haven't mishifted or over revved the car. I'm guessing it could be a combination of things. I'm still on the orginal timing belt which now has right at 75,000mi, has taken a pretty tough beating (auto-x and alot of drag passes), and has been exposed to alot of dirt roads. I'm really hoping it has nothing to do with the teeth of my STR cam gears, because the gears themselves have been slip free. Would me running Skunk stage one cams with a high mileage timing belt make it more prone to jump timing? How tight should the timing belt be?


< hopes a new timing belt and upgraded Portflow inners will fix the problem from happening again.

 

The timing belt should be tight enough to sing, in my book. Others like stock tension. With 75,000 miles on the stock belt, the belt probably experienced some stretch. Drag racing and auto-x are harder on the valvetrain than everyday driving, so that is probably why the belt jumped. (the combination of high rpm operation and stretched belt). I re-adjust my timing belt every 10-15k miles, just to be safe, and I would recommend the same to you, in the future.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by b19coupe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I re-adjust my timing belt every 10-15k miles, just to be safe, and I would recommend the same to you, in the future. </TD></TR></TABLE>

cheap *** insurance

I am going to start doing the same thing. And new timing belts are cheap insurance. I only have 12k miles on my belt, but im getting a new one because im putting in bigger cams (m23's) compared to the 98 itr cams i had in before.

whenever u have more springs pressure (stiffer spring) and bigger cams, it will be more stress on the timing belt

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by b19coupe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The timing belt should be tight enough to sing, in my book. Others like stock tension. With 75,000 miles on the stock belt, the belt probably experienced some stretch. Drag racing and auto-x are harder on the valvetrain than everyday driving, so that is probably why the belt jumped. (the combination of high rpm operation and stretched belt). I re-adjust my timing belt every 10-15k miles, just to be safe, and I would recommend the same to you, in the future. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah I'll definitely be checking on it more frequently now. I guess its nice to know that my valvesprings didn't fail. Oh well I guess the Portflow inners won't hurt anything.

Edit: Sorry about the double post. Why it posted my correct post and the messed up one is beyond me (I sure as heck didn't type everything twice).

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by b19coupe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The timing belt should be tight enough to sing, in my book. Others like stock tension. With 75,000 miles on the stock belt, the belt probably experienced some stretch. Drag racing and auto-x are harder on the valvetrain than everyday driving, so that is probably why the belt jumped. (the combination of high rpm operation and stretched belt). I re-adjust my timing belt every 10-15k miles, just to be safe, and I would recommend the same to you, in the future. </TD></TR></TABLE>


My PE belt with spec b's sure "warbles....."