My damn TDC marks won't line up. i get them meticulously aligned put the T belt on tension it, tighten the tensioner and turn it over once, when i get the cam gear marks lined up again the crankpulley mark is about a quarter inch to the left of the mark on the timing belt cover. every time i get the belt on and tension it i start to turn the crank and i can feel all the slack on the long side get pulled tight. that's what's throwing off the marks, but the tensioner only pulls the slack from the short side. i'm currently running 2.3 advance on both cams, but that should not make the marks misalign should it, i had the same problem at 0,0.

 

Sounds like your head and/or block has been milled and this will cause the gears to roll back and not line up at TDC as shown by your main pulley.

 

you are correct sir. my block is milled .028", which is why my cams are set to 2.3 advance. howeveer i'm getting the same results as when they were at 0

 

Adjusting the gears (spinning the inner hub) will not change the position of the outer hub of the gear, so the lines will not line up regardless of your gear settings.

 

that's what i thought, my only geuss now is that the belt got stretched somehow. i got it new and the only use it has seen is turning the engine over maybe 20 times tops. i took off the crank pulley and lower belt cover and tried putting the belt over the cams first, then the crank, still it's misaligned. so if the mill puts extra slack in the belt ant the cam gears can never make the marks line up properly, this would mean everyone who has a milled head or block has timing marks that don't quite line up. that does not seem right.

 

This is another reason why we have adjustable cam gears. They will compensate for the change of material distance that the milling took away. Mine is off by probably 2-3mm, which is very small. But you must adjust the cam gears to make up for the change in angle of the cams.

 

so when you have the gears adjusted to where they would essentially be zeroed out, are your timing marks aligned or are they off?

 

Timing marks will still be off after adjusting the gears as after milling the head distance from center of camshaft to center of crankshaft is less than before, but if properly adjusted camshafts will be correctly timed and that is after all what matters.

 

thanks, thats what i was looking for.