Ok heres my problem i have a 97 eclipse RS..im driving along one at (at about 65MPH) and all of a sudden my car stops..i get it towed back home break everything down trying to find the problem.i check for spark and i have spark,check the plugs and wires they are fine,check the timing and lo and behold inside my timing cover is timing belt dust not a shred of belt left..so i put a new timing belt on and the car starts but wont idle only way to keep it on is to press gas..so i ask a friend of mine who works at a shop and he says sounds like bent valves..so we pull the head off over the weekend and the head had 12 bent valves..sooo after about 3 months of sitting infront of my house i have a new head new fuel rail new timing belt..does this sound like everthing ill need or has anyone else run into this type of problemand it turned out to not be the head but the whole engine..

*oh yeah just soo u know its a 420a and when i pulled the head off we checked the pistons and no cracks* any info would help alot thanks

 

Thats a good start, I would go ahead and replace the spark plugs and wires, not that its a neccessity, but while you doing it, you might as well.
also, you should replace the water pump, its easier to do now than later, and could save you alot of head-ache down the road.
Make sure you follow the FSM and get it in time 100% before starting it. Get it wrong now, and at best your gonna have to tear it back down and redo it all. Get it wrong, and worst case is you'll be replacing everything again.

 

yeah i did put a new watepump on when i took it apart..thats what caused everything to go bad in the fist place.But another poblem im having..i cant find the timing maks on the cam gears.i was able to find the the first time..but now NOTHING..thats really odd

 

the timing marks are 2 small cuts just on the edge behind the teeth on a lip. put those directly across from eath other and the crank to Top Dead Center (TDC). Please tell me that you put a new head gasket when you put the new head on it??

 

Ive heard this before... a timing belt snapped from a 420a engine and thus made a mess with the synch of the camshafs and bent some valves down (hurt the head also) so make sure the marks meet like RCJ mentioned and TDC means having piston #1 all the way up, you can put a screwdriver or something in the sparkplug hole and move the crank til you notice its all the way up. Mind that theres an order to tighten the camshafts holders.

 

do NOT go by just sticking a screwdriver down there and estimating when it's TDC. there is a little triangle on the crank timing pulley that lines up with another triangle on the block. then just make sure ur timing marks are lined up and you are good to go.

 

is it really that bad? o_O its not like scratching it or forcing it to moving, the screwdriver is just gonna rest over the piston, (it can be another long thing object) the thing is when you move the crank it will lift up that thingy you placed there, thus letting you know when the piston reaches its most highest point.... i didnt know it was bad (i did it in a completely oil drained engine after a complete head fix up). If its that bad (suppossing you didnt misunderstand me) where are these triangles? haha i didnt see them... really

 

once you use a pulley puller to get ther harmonic balancer off of the crank shaft in the block look at the pulley that holds the timing belt on the crank... there is a little triangle on the edge of it somwhere. There is also a little triangle on the block i'd say about 2o'clock if looking at it straight up. Just line the 2 up and you are at top dead center.

 

nobody mentioned replacing the idler and tensioner pulleys, whichis a VERY good idea, one of those locks up and trashes your new timingbelt, it jumps and bends valves all over again.

 

good call!! i could have swore that he said he had already changed them out, i must have been thinking of another post. DEFINATLY swap those out, about a month ago somebody did water pump, timing belt and tensioner... got 200 miles when the idler bearing basicaly decintigrated and destroyed the timing belt while goin about 50 and had to replace everything he just replaced plus about 6 valves.