Hey guys (and gals) as you see I am new and havea quick question. I bought a 95 eclipse 2.0 n/t that needed a water pump, well, I replaced the pump, t-belt, tensioner and pulleys and now can't get it to start. I am pretty sure it is timed right but the compression is low across the board. My questions is this, on the cam pulleys, there are two timing marks on each pulley, with the word "up" and two arrows pointing upwards, I assume that the arrows face up on the cam pulleys, and the marks line up with the head. This is the way I timed it up but this puts the dowel pins on the cams down (on the bottom) and on most engines I have worked on (including the 4g63) the dowel pins are up (on the top). If I do this though, the word "up" and the arrows will pointing down. The manual doesnt say anyting about the arrows. Which way is correct??? I mean, you would think that the arrows beside the word up would face up, but I don't know. I would like to get some clarification on this before I pull the head. If the cams are 180 degrees off what would happen? Thanks alot and you guys have a great forum here!

 

atually if you put both cams 180 out, your on #4 TDC instead of #1 and it would run just fine., have you double checked that your not a tooth out? Even if the cams line up the crank may be one tooth ahead or behind when the cam are on zero. usually the dowel pins go up, and the 2 marks ont eh cams need to go together, theres 2 on each gear of couse, but line up the middle 2 with the dowels up.
If it has paint marks dont line those up, line up the notches in the gears. Ive seen quite a few people make that mistake

 

look at your marks now, try turning the motor over until you get as close to the marks being even as possible. once you get it as close as you can if the marks are not lines up, take the tensioner and belt off... this time when you get everything lined up (as in pic above where the marks are facing directly across from each other) turn the cams apx 1/2 tooth opposite way that they normally turn, what this does is when you put the belt on like that and snap the tensioner into place, the slack will pull the belt and gears just a TAD (apx 1/2 tooth) back into place so that they should be just about perfectly alligned.

 

Thanks for the quick answers. Would being off 1 or 2 teeth cause such low compression on all the cylinders? What I need to do is re-time it with the dowel pins up, not down, but according to racerx it should run like it is now, with both cams 180 degress out. I'm afraid that there may be more to this car than what I was told, like bent valves. But I want to be sure I've done everything right before I pull the head. Any other ideas, or anything else I can check? I don't have the comp numbers with me now, but it seems like they were somewhere around 120-60-80-100. The thing just sound sick when I turn it over. Any help would be great, and thanks again!

 

Update!!! Check this out, I found info at http://www.2gnt.com/www/corbin/rebuild.htmlthat says the exhaust cam dowel should be facing up and the intake cam dowel facing down. If thats the case, then right now my engine is way out of time...so maybe I can get lucky and re time it like that and not have to have any head work. What do you guys think, ever heard of that? Thanks again!

 

we can't click on that link. i just chaned my timing belt, idler pulley, water pump, tensioner pulley, tensioner and head gasked in my 420a and the propper way to align the timing marks up is to have them pointing directly towards eachother, not one up one down or opposite or anything like that. They are suposed to be just as they are in the pic above.

 

I know to line up the timing marks facing each other, I'm talking about the camshaft pulley dowels. When I put the cam pulleys back on, I had both dowels facing up, I've found several articles that say the exhaust cam dowel should be up, the intake cam dowel down. So, basically this would mean one of the cams is 180 degrees off on my car now. Would this cause low compression and a no-run condition? Thanks again for the help.

 

If its not dead on perfect it either wont run, pistons willhit and/or possibly bend valves, or it'll just run like total ****. dead on is your only choice. more than 2 teeth out will bend valves. so be carefull with it.
being out of time will cause low compression because the valves are open when its supposed to be compressing air.

 

keep in mind you're not actually lining the marks up to each other... there is a timing mark on the timing cover behind the gears (which is shadowed in that picture, so you really cant see it).

 

Got it running, the exhaust cam was timing gear was 180 degrees off. Thanks to everyone for the help.