Well I just got done changing out my timing belt & water pump and still I notice the problem I had before....lining up the cam gear markings even with the TDC at the crank. Whenever the crank pulley is exactly at TDC, the two lines on my adj. cam gears should line up evenly--but it doesn't. No matter how I adjust it (slipped the belt off and move just the right gear over to next timing belt tooth) after turning the belt over, the right gear(intake) is still a little higher than the exhaust cam gear (about 1/2 a tooth). I can't make it dead even no matter what; could this be because of the head being milled really low? Will this affect much? Some inputs please...

 

Did you try using a timing light?

 

so how long did this take you?

 

Timing light to line up the cam gears?? I used the timing light to set the ignition timing, but that's it. How can u use a timing light to line up the gears?

The install took me only a little over an hour--no ac or power steering in the way

 

How far are the arrows off? I mean if it's like a mm or something that's fine. As long as nothing is a full tooth off. The marks won't be perfect.

 

its very very very hard to get it perfect mine is like 1-2mm off cant hardly tell but you can. if you got adj. cam gears loosen the bolts on both gears so the cams can sit like they want and line the tdc mark up on the cam gears (this works teh best i have seen)

 

But when I tighten it back up, it goes back to where it was; it's off by half a tooth. My cam gears used to line up perfectly w/ the crank at TDC when it was all LS and no milling to the head (now it's the vtec head w/ alot of milling). I'm still wondering if the milling of the head can cause that?

 

Milling the head can cause that but...

Are you sure you used the TDC mark on the crank pulley and not the three timing marks??

 

Uh...ya the white mark is TDC.

 

take off the crank pulley and be sure the arrows are lined up if the need be. And yes, anytime you mill the head, your cam timing is automatically retarded. For every .012 of milling, your cam retards 1 degree. And if you say you milled a lot, this is your problem. Anytime you mill the head, you need to get adjustable cam gears. You'll be having some better low end with the retarded cams, and your high ends going to be really laggish

 

You shouldn't even be using the crank pulley marks to set the crank to TDC.

It's not accurate, in part b/c there's greater subjective error in reading it, and another part in that I think it's never right to begin with anyways.

You should be using, at the very least, the marking on the oil pump and the crankshaft timing belt gear to set the crankshaft to TDC.

It's become a personal preference now to just use a degree wheel to get TDC dead on instead of guessing for it.

 

read my first post.....I have adj. cam gears.

 

I'm just saying in general, unless you want your cams to be retarded

And yes, like I said in my previous post, pull the crank pulley and use the arrows to line up TDC, with the key way slot facing straight up.


[Modified by Emerica, 10:59 PM 10/31/2002]