Changed timing belt..now it wont start

[BryceWSJ]

it's a blacktop.

I changed the timing belt, tensioner pulley and tensioner. aligned everything correctly, dimple on the oil pump with little notch, two cams lined up, and the center point on the cams is dead one. for whatever reasons, this thing will not start. it's like it wants to start but it just wont fully ignite. i'm getting spark because if i hold the throttles open, i get a massive flame out of one of them. i can smell a **** ton of fuel coming out of the exhaust and i'm quite at a loss for thought. i'm running honda coils. it ran perfectly fine before i changed the belt.

any ideas on what to check?

[BryceWSJ]

i did notice that once the lower timing cover is on, the crank pulley does not match up with the 0 on the cover. in fact, it's way off.

[taroroot]

Flames out of intake is sure sign your timing is off.

[BryceWSJ]

Exactly. However, I never touched the distributor and everything lines up perfectly on the cams and crank.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

We can't know what you did but from our perspective I have to say that 95% of the time someone comes on with these issues and swears they did it right they come back later saying they thought it was right but it actually wasn't.
This is why you see this response. Go back and make sure it is right for sure.

Not sure if you put it back to how it was or if you used the book but apparently there is a glitch in the book.
Check this thread out and see if it's any help.
http://forums.club4ag.com/zerothread?id=87830

[gotzoom?]

Looks like you're going to be tearing it down and doing it again. Before tearing anything apart, take out the #1 spark plug and gently drop a long screwdriver through the spark plug hole. Rotate the crankshaft so that the timing mark is at the zero mark on the cover and watch the screwdriver. The screwdriver should be at it's highest point when the timing mark on the pulley is at the zero mark on the cover. If it is, look at the marks on the cams. If the dimple mark isn't at the line on the backing plate on both cam gears, you just found your problem. If the timing mark is at zero and the screwdriver is not at it's highest point, the woodruff key is either missing or damaged to the point that the pulley isn't in the position that it should be. You'll need to replace the woodruff key in order to get the pulley aligned properly. Good luck!

[BryceWSJ]

Thank you! I will do that today.

[BryceWSJ]

so upon lining up the crankshaft pulley to 0, the timing mark, on the crank gear, does not line up with dimple on the oil pump. does that sound right?

[BryceWSJ]

so, i did the putting a screw driver in the hole and turning it to it's highest point. literally, everything lines up. like PERFECTLY. i can even take pictures. also, the crank pulley doesn't line up with the 0 on the timing cover, it's at about the 3o'clock position, but the notch on the timing gear, behind it, lines up with the dimple on the oil pump.

[BryceWSJ]

compression is 180, all cylinders.

[BryceWSJ]

as you can see in the pictures. everything is spot on. the exhaust cam might look like it's off, but it's really not. just the angle of the photo.

[foonix]

It should be impossible to misalign the crank pulley due to the woodruff key. If the pulley doesn't align with the timing marks despite the screwdriver showing TDC, I'd double check they key is installed.

It sounds like either the screwdriver is wrong, the crank gear is wrong, or the pulley is wrong. Once you can get all three to agree, I'd double check the cam alignment one more time, and then use a timing light to check the CAS.

I can't get your images to load unfortunately.

You say you are using honda coils? Is it stock ECU or aftermarket?

[BryceWSJ]

stock ecu. no codes. fired before i did timing belt change. you keep referring to a "key"

the screw driver is at the top, at the correct mark on the crank timing gear. so i know that's right.

what is that? where can i look? what can i check?

[foonix]

The key is a metal tab on the crank shaft that the crank pulley sits on. I don't remember off the top of my head exactly which kind of key the 20v uses, but I know it uses one. If you remove the crank pulley, you should see either the tab, or a slot for a tab. If there is a slot for a tab but no tab, then the tab has fallen out and you'll have to find it (and this also explains the crank pulley misalignment.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodruff_ ... druff_keys

[BryceWSJ]

mine is definitely there, and the crank sits on it perfectly.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Did you check that the crank pulley lined up before the job?
Between the MR2, FWD and RWD there are at least a couple pulley/cover combos and if one got switched out for another they would no longer line up at TDC. If this is the case then your only problem will be setting ignition timing.
Did you move/remove the dizzy?

[BryceWSJ]

i did not check. however, i am lining up the crank gear with the notch on the block/oil pump. are you suggesting the timing gear could have been changed? i pulled it off, anything to look for? does someone have a picture of theirs that i can compare the notches to?

i did not move/remove the dizzy. didn't touch any ignition what so ever.

[BryceWSJ]

okay, pulled the timing gear off. the woodruff key looks a little mangled, but other than that, it sits in the hole nice and snug. the timing gear slides on and off just fine, it moves a little bit, maybe 2mm back and forth, but other than that, i don't think that's enough to effect the timing. i'm at a loss. i don't know what else to check.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

I am suggesting exactly what I said.
There are several different variations of crank pulley with marks in different spots and timing belt covers with marks in different spots. If you mix and match them the timing marks will not line up when the motor is at TDC.
This has nothing to do with mechanical timing but if the timing belt gear and oil pump are lined up the crank pulley and it's timing mark on the timing cover will not be.

Now I do believe there is an oil pump that would fit the 4A that has a timing mark in a different location and the crank gear would have it moved to match. If you mixed and matched oil pump and gear you would have the same problem but I find it very unlikely someone a. would have done that and b. gotten it timed right the first time. Since you have checked with the screwdriver you have pretty much eliminated this from the possibilities already.
From your picture I can't tell if the intake and exhaust dowels are in their right holes. Did you read through the thread I posted and confirm 100% that both intake and exhaust cam are clocked properly?

[BryceWSJ]

i know the exhaust is, it's in the 5 slot. the intake one, i have not taken off, so i don't know. however, i popped off the valve cover, and the #1 cam lobes are pointing away from each other like they should be. so i highly doubt, the intake sprocket is clocked incorrectly.

[BryceWSJ]

so it starts....and runs like ****. but at least it starts! i'm not sure what happened. i pulled everything apart for about the 20th time, put it all back together. it was doing the same thing...shooting flames out of the stacks and what not. so finally i just held the throttle open and let the flames shoot...and tadaaaaa it started. makes no sense to me...at all.

[BryceWSJ]

so this thing backfires like mad. i checked the timing while running, the best i could, and the mark is wayyy off. like at the 3'oclock. would being off by a tooth on the timing belt cause this?

[gotzoom?]

You're using the correct timing belt, right? 16V and 20V don't use the same timing belt. If you align the crank pulley to 0 TDC, the cam gear marks should always align, no matter how many rotations of the crankshaft you make. How about your ignition timing? If that is way off, the car will run like crap. If it's 180 degrees off, it may run on one of two cylinders.

[BryceWSJ]

20v belt for sure. toyota belt. and everything lines up no matter how many times i spin it. now, one thing i cannot seem to clarify:

1. 0 TDC = crank notch against timing cover? OR little slot on timing gear against oil pump?

it's currently aligned to little slot on timing gear against oil pump.

NOW, i've revved the **** out of it, and it runs a WHOLE lot better. like..no back firing, not sputtering, starts great, idles great. does everything great.

with that said, when i check the timing by connecting a spark plug wire to the honda coil and connect it to the spark plug, the timing mark on the crank is at about the 5o'clock position, after i turn the distributor to where the engine runs pretty smooth. IS THIS NORMAL? is it because i have coil packs? i do have a snap on timing gun and it gives me a tach read out. the tach read out says about 3200, i'm assuming that's because the coils are firing 4x faster than normal?

[BryceWSJ]

found the bolt i put to block off the front brake booster hole fell out...put that back in, but now it's like it wants to stall. and it does. what givessssss

[BryceWSJ]

so, i pulled the codes: 24(intake air temp), 31(vacuum sensor), 41(TPS)

There were no codes yesterday. this happened over night. could this be possible? am i missing something?

it revs great, but if i hold it at a certain RPM, it's like it starts missing really bad, but it'll rev up from there. when i let the throttle go, it dies out.

[BryceWSJ]

it's running extremely rich too. black smoke from the exhaust

[MEGA86]

Did you ever find out what was wrong? I am having the same problem on my blacktop with 1NZ cops. Ran fine before I swapped the tensioner. Now it starts and dies immediately every time.

[jondee86]

1. 0 TDC = crank notch against timing cover? OR little slot on timing gear against oil pump?

Just because I´ve got time on my hands When the #1 cylinder is at TDC on the compression
stroke, the timing gear mark matches to the dimple on the oil pump AND the notch on the
crank pulley matches to the zero timing mark on the lower timing belt cover AND the dimples
on the cam pulleys should match with the marks on the backing plate. Maybe on 20V the dimples
match where the pulleys are closest together ??

Since you are running COP´s when you check the timing with a light you will get two flashes for
every revolution of the crank pulley. One of them should happen when the notch on the crank
pulley is somewhere between 15 and 20 deg advanced on the timing belt cover scale. The other
flash will happen 180 deg away (opposite) the first one, and @ 5 o´clock sounds about right.

Getting all those sensor codes at the same time sounds a lot like you lost the 5V supply from the
ECU, so I would be looking for a broken wire or short between the ECU and sensors.

Cheers... jondee86

[allpr0h]

the man has to be right, you must be using an hybrid 4age
get a timing light... no ?
it means you cannot take the notches as reference anymore, since the setup is fucked up
no?

check it out..