Just finished doing quite a bit of work on my car, and now I can’t get the timing to the desired 16 deg +/- 2…
Just replaced timing belt, plug wires, distributor cap & rotor, set my valve clearances.
I’m not sure if my timing was correct before I did all this work or not, but as soon as I replaced all of those parts and set my valves, my engine ran smoother than it has the entire time I’ve owned it… but when I took it for a spin, I noticed a drop in power…more specifically low- and mid-range torque.
So I decided to check my timing and sure enough my car’s retarded 
But when I advanced it, I couldn’t get it past about 12 deg… no where close to 16. Ran out of movement in the distributor…
Anyone know what’s wrong??
I think your timing belt has either jump a teeth. that what I think. my friend had that problem but was not that bad.
your timing belt is either one or even two teeth off on either the intake or the exhaust cam. Sorry to break the news to you but your gonna have to break down the timing covers.
Hint when you get your cams lined up there are two small holes in the bearing caps (right behind the cam gears) the valve cover has to be off. match up a couple of drill bits or nails to those two holes to help hold your cams in place. After you think you have everything lined up remove the drill bits or nails and spin the motor over a couple of times land back on cyl#1 @tdc and see if your marks still line up.
hope this helps
Before you start tearing everything down, did you cross the jumper before testing your timing?? First off guys, his car is running beautifully, right, how do you figure the timing is screwed, jumped teeth?? If that was the case, it would run like ****, if it ran at all!
I’d double check a few things before your rebuild your engine!!
yeah, i jumped those wires when I was checking the timing…
I, too, have my doubts about the cams not being lined up right, because it just runs sooooo smoothly. My steering wheel used to vibrate at an idle, and now it doesn’t, no matter how I have my distributor adjusted…
One thing that bothers me, is that my dad’s hand-held tach wasn’t working, so we just had to use the car’s tach to go by… hard to tell if it’s really running at 750RPM or not…
However, even if it’s idling a LITTLE bit slow, we can rev it to ~1000RPM and the marks are closer, but still not right on, so I don’t think it’s my idle speed throwing it off…
For clarification (in case I just didn’t check the timing correctly), there are 4 marks on the pulley right? 3 in a group. and one seperate. the middle of the 3 is 16 deg… right?
Thanks for your help guys! I’m havin trouble thinkin after 1 hour sleep last night… :shock:
Advance your timing to 18 deg and use premium fuel, 92 or higher, you’ll get around 3-5 hp. My car is set at 18 deg and I gained good midrange power!
yeah, but that’s just it – I CAN’T advance it… distributor won’t go any further…
Plus 92+ octane is pretty sparse around here… :\
What kind of timing light do you have?? Does it give you a numeric figure when testing, or is it just a flashing light?
I forget what brand it is… but yeah it’s just a strobe light… no numbers…
Found the problem!
Well, after taking off my valve cover again, and my timing belt covers, and my crank pulley, i finally found the problem.
Using dantheman’s hint of using something to keep the cams in line, i was able to more clearly see the alignment of the crank pulley and the oil pump. (thanks dan!) Turns out the belt was one notch off on my crank pulley (guess I lined it up wrong when I put the belt on). Luckily for me, it was off in the right direction – if it had been one tooth off in the other direction, it would have advanced my timing waaaay too much. That could have been bad…
Thanks for everyone’s advice!