help! can't get engine to start

[90TTalonAWD]

OK background. I had a month before i was moving from my college house, and i had another car running so i decided to remove my engine to fix a few things (new intake manifold without broken tb bolt in it, oil pump seal to stop oil leak, required removing timing belt).

I put it all back together, put the engine back in and fired it up. Nothing. Ends up that the factory alarm starter kill got stuck so i had to pay 500 to get an electrician to bypass the whole system. Get that done and i start it, it runs terrible and then dies.

Now i have it in another garage and i'm slowly trying to figure out why i can't get it to start. It won't fire up at all now. I thought it was fuel, checked fuel pump works fine. Checked spark, it fires, got new spark plugs. Next i was thinking i was going to try to check the MAF, i have my stock one, the reasoning on this is that I have a MAFT, when you turn your key, the LED should blink green to indicate it is working correct? If so my maft is dead, probably sat too long in a dusty environment with the cover off. I'll try that tomorrow.

The other thing i think could be a problem is cam timing. I put my belt back on myself, and i aligned everything perfectly but I still have this faint worry that i did it wrong. On my camshaft sprockets, i have the pins pointed up when i align the belt, but the markings on the outside of the sprockets have white paint on them (put there by RRE i believe when they redid my engine 3 years ago) So should those white markings be right next to each other with the dowel pins pointing down instead? I dunno i'm totally stumped as to why it doesn't work, any help would be appreciated and i will answer any question to help out. Also if this is in the wrong section or if the topic is inapproriate, please let me know i'll alter it. I'm just trying to get some feedback from some more experienced members as to why i can't get this engine to fire. I believe spark and fuel are in order, next is to check air and lastly timing, after that i'm lost. thanks

 

[kspharris]

Was the car running properly before you started all this? Did it have any problems? As far as your cam gears go they probably just put the cam gears on the wrong cams which wouldn't cause a problem other than confusion. Do you have access to a datalogger? That will be the most helpful product that you can buy. Let me know, Keith.

 

[90TTalonAWD]

yes the engine ran well before i mucked it up (makes me want to ditch my car hobby and take up underwater basket weaving again). Ok good the know that the cam gears are aligned ok, do you think that there is a possibility that i have the crankshaft aligned 180 degrees out of sync? Should the crank be rotated one more time around while keeping the camshafts in the same position or does it not matter? Yes i do have a datalogger, what do you think i can do to determine what is wrong with the engine, should i fire it up a bit and then search for codes? Thanks alot keith, i'm stumped on this one i appreciate any help i can get and good ideas, i'll keep you posted as i work more on it.

 

[plymubishi]

you said you alligned the marks on the cam gears-but did you allign the crank? if thats not alligned the cams and crank are goeing to work against each other and the motor will not fire

 

[90TTalonAWD]

yes i aligned the camshaft marks as well as the crankshaft marks, everything should be aligned but that's just another thing i'm going to try later on when other things don't work. Update though, i tried putting my old injectors back in thinking maybe my 550ccs got clogged, i also emptied out my gastank thinking the gas had sat too long and that fresh gas would work better. Still no luck. Next i'm going to test out the coil pack to make sure it hasn't gone bad on me, i'm also going to order the datalogger and i think my compression tester is broken so i'm going to buy another one and see if maybe my engine itself is dead. Any other suggestions while i'm at it?
Oh also, i've been turning the engine over and it seems that some but not all cylinders are firing. A. because one of the runners will get hot and B. i look at the spark plug and it has changed color, while some cylinders have spark plugs that don't change color.