Hi everybody.
Sometime ago my timing belt has broke when I was driving on the highway. That same day I took the car to a mechanic and he fixed it. He looked at the engine and said that i was pretty lucky and nothing had broke. After that when I drove it I felt a considerable lost of low end power. I took it back to him and he advanced my ignition timing all the way, but i still got a very weak low end eventhough it became a bit better. Since that I changed my spark plugs and wires but the car still performs very poorly on starts unless I take it to like 3.5k rpm. I think that my timing might be off. Does anyone have any cost effective ideas?
It sounds to me like the timing belt is off one notch on the crank. That’s exactly what my car did after I changed my belt – I pushed the distributor all the way (advanced timing as much as I could) and it still wasn’t up to spec). So I had to take everything apart again, move the belt one notch on the crankshaft, and then put it all back together and set the timing again. Problem solved.
Thats what I thought it was. The problem is I aready payed 350CAN for that change and I really dont feel like paying another 350 to change it again. Then I thought maybe I should do it myself( I got the manual) but since I dont really know much about cars and especially about engines, I decided not too.
If the mchanic put it on wrong in the 1st place, then he should fix it free f charge. It is his fault. Take it back (with a calm mannerism) and explain that you believe the timing belt is off one notch, and ask him to investigate ad adjust it to make it better.
Slip him a $20 or somethig to get the wheels rollin’ if he looks like he doesn’t care. Especially if it’s a private shop. 
~Eric
if the timing is off on the belt, i’d take it back to the mechanic and have them double check it. it should be under warranty because they just had work on it.
Yeah that would be a good idea unfortinatly some time has passed already and also he was doing me a favore because he did it right away and he basically didnt take any money for himself because he is working on someone. In any case its too late now. My question is would you sudgest to do it myself and do i need any special tool for doing this? ( I could get lots of theoretical instructions on the net)
I would definately check it myself. Turn the crank till its on TDC and see if both “UP” arrows are pointing up in the same direction, if there pointing down turn the crank one full turn and see if there up.
I still didnt check the timing belt but I was reading on the forum and came across jumping an ecu. I am not exactly sure what it is but I dont think my mechanic did it. Could this be why i have no low end power and my ignition is advanced all the way?
it sounds like ur timing belt is off. Another way you can tell is put a screewdriver into the No.1 cylinder. Turn the crank, and when the whitee mark on the crank aligns with the timing belt cover, the screwdriver SHOULD BE AT THE TOP OF THE PISTON STROKE. The same thing happeend to a fellow member , and when I did this, the screwdriver began it’s way DOWN as the white mark aligneed itseelf with the timing belt cover.
check out this thread.
http://www.g2ic.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11312&highlight=cam+gears
Re do your timing belt according, and it should be fine.
email me for questions, max-hui@shaw.ca, or call me 604-329-9863.