Hey all,

I’ve installed a full timing belt kit from Luso Overland, timed the whole engine, tensioned the belt and everything, yet the passenger side camshaft sprocket is bothering me a little. When I removed the old timing belt (which I am led to believe was the original; 83k miles on the clock and I’m the 2nd owner), the timing marks were all just barely off. Driver side cam was a little “late” of its timing mark at TDC, the crank also slightly late, and the passenger cam right on its timing mark.

When installing the new belt I ensured I had the crank perfectly TDC, as well as both the cams. But after fully installing and tensioning the belt, I noticed the passenger cam is slightly off, just as the driver cam was with the old belt. It isn’t “a tooth” off, just slightly “early” timing wise. Do I retry timing the engine to get this perfect, or have some of you run into this before and can/should I leave it?

Thanks in advance!
tworotors

Passenger cam position at TDC:

 

It looks like a parallax error rather than timing being off. If the tensioner was set correctly, rotate the engine through two full rotations (clockwise durection looking from the front). Focus ONLY on stopping rotatiob when crankshaft timing marks allign with the mark on the engine case. Use a small mirror to look along the tooth on the tuning gear to confirm. After that check each camshaft tuning marks (once again - use a mirror to look at it perpendicular to the cam gear). If the marks allign, you're good. If one or both are off (a different tooth of the gear is directly in front of the mark), you'll need to re-time it. Remember - you must only move the engine clockwise to check alignment. If you go in the opposite direction, you may get enough slack on the tensioner that it will "look" right when it's not, or look wrong when timing is actually correct.

 

Awesome thank you. The tensioner pulley was set to 39in-lbs as listed in the FSM, and the auto tensioner pin slid out smoothly, no resistance or catching. I rotated the engine clockwise twice, got the crank timing mark lined up perfectly, and the driver cam is still aligned, but the passenger is just barely off by half a tooth from its timing mark, with no slack anywhere on the belt.

On this forum I also found a post from 2019 where someone was asking the same question about the 6G72 in their Eclipse; no one ever replied to that thread but the way the OP described the passenger camshaft position with respect to the rest of the engine sounded exactly like what I’m dealing with here.

The thread:
https://mitsubishiforum.com/forum/ev...p-marks-53178/

Here’s an overhead view of the passenger cam:



The crankshaft:

 

Do you recall if the timing marks were aligned the same before you took the old belt off, i.e. passenger half tooth off?

 

Yes the passenger cam was in the same position, so I was hoping that meant I’m safe to leave it haha.

 

If that's the case, thrn I would agree with you

 

Wonderful, thanks so much!