It looks like your timing is off. The easy way to tell is to stick a ruler through the two cam gear inside marks. The ruler should pass through the center of the cam gear bolts. The pictures you attached make it look like it goes above the bolt.

Yes that does look off to me, like 1 tooth on the exhaust side.

Your dowel pins are also not in the 12 o'clock position.

MidShipCivic said:

Your dowel pins are also not in the 12 o'clock position.

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Well chalk up one more thing previous owner did wrong to this car, and the timing job was done by a shop too!
Grr, I noticed that the intake dowel pin is nowhere near 12 o'clock.... so yah, need to redo the entire timing belt then huh?
Any tips?

So what kind of affects would that have on his car. Obviously not enough to create interference but I would assume its would hurt performance.

Is you're idle lopey?

if you don't want it to get expensive quickly stop driving the car, like, now. Do a compression test. I doubt you've knocked off a valve, but if you have you'll be SOOO pissed if you get a new timing belt on there and have to change out the head. Get a manual and have at it!

IslandTSI said:

So what kind of affects would that have on his car. Obviously not enough to create interference but I would assume its would hurt performance.

Is you're idle lopey?

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http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256991
Are basically my symptoms, my exhaust is pitch black, I get around 13 vac at idle and it bounces, engine+exhaust sound like it's pulsing, a little bit of engine shaking, tapping sound in the intake manifold(maybe ISC motor, don't know yet). Car has it's pull, but I don't know if it's pulling like a DSM is supposed to, (don't have any dsm buddies). O and last time I checked compression, mid november I think... it was 190 across all 4.

tkelly27 said:

if you don't want it to get expensive quickly stop driving the car, like, now. Do a compression test. I doubt you've knocked off a valve, but if you have you'll be SOOO pissed if you get a new timing belt on there and have to change out the head. Get a manual and have at it!

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Well it's funny because, I've probably been driving the car like this for a little under a year I guess, so if i were to have bent a valve, I'd know by now correct?
This is a big problem in my eyes and will be fixed shortly, I'm just glad you guys could help diagnose it wit me.

I say TWO Teeth off - & IMO it looks EXACTLY like one where it LOOKED "in Time" UNTIL they Tensioned the Belt, then it rolled OOT as the Timing Belt Tensioned the slack out between the Pulleys - You actually have to mis-time or "Bias" it a Tooth THEN Tension it, & then re-check it of course - Certainly I'd address this ASAP & you are in for a LOT of Fun once this is fixed, it will scream like it never has before~!

take a pic of the cam and oil sprocket and i can tell you for sure.

BUCK said:

I say TWO Teeth off - & IMO it looks EXACTLY like one where it LOOKED "in Time" UNTIL they Tensioned the Belt, then it rolled OOT as the Timing Belt Tensioned the slack out between the Pulleys - You actually have to mis-time or "Bias" it a Tooth THEN Tension it, & then re-check it of course - Certainly I'd address this ASAP & you are in for a LOT of Fun once this is fixed, it will scream like it never has before~!

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Yes I've read about this, how you have to turn the exhaust cam 1 tooth clockwise and then tension and it'll fall into place, thanks vfaq. You got me all fired up, like I want to do it right now! Thanks for those needed words.

drewvr4 said:

take a pic of the cam and oil sprocket and i can tell you for sure.

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Will do, come monday, you just take off the lower timing cover and it should be visible?

yea take off the cover and you will see...

make sure when you do the timing that the right side of the belt is tight, because when you let tension out on it, it will draw the left side tight.

You'd likely know if you bent a valve, but a compression tester is $10 and it will take you an afternoon to check.

Sounds like you are on the right track though!

Belts can skip teeth at random if not properly tensioned. Mine did at least.

haha, I agree with the guy above, you're not going to believe it's your car when you get everything lined up right.

tkelly27 said:

You'd likely know if you bent a valve, but a compression tester is $10 and it will take you an afternoon to check.

Sounds like you are on the right track though!

Belts can skip teeth at random if not properly tensioned. Mine did at least.

haha, I agree with the guy above, you're not going to believe it's your car when you get everything lined up right.

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Well I've already done a compression test a couple of months back, and not much has changed since then, still straight 190 across all 4. It's really high, and out of factory spec., but no one seems to know the reason why, I've seafoamed the car like 3 times and it's gotten a little better, but compression is still very high.

Alright, I got a few questions on this. First like the OP I believe my cam timing marks were victim to that slight movement when the guy who rebuilt my motor about 16K ago did the T-belt. I just read for about a hour on doing a T-belt job and it didnt seem that hard at all. My question is...If Im just realigning the marks on the camgears...all I have to do is steps 23 and on once everything is lose like it says here http://www.vfaq.com/mods/timingbelt-2G.html

Thanks guys, and EboyO hows the car comming?

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! It's finally fixed!!!
The timing WAS the problem!
Vac is at 21 @ 1000rpm(need to adjust the idle now)

No more lag.... OMFG I'm so happy, it's 12:30 and I've set off 5 alarms already!
It was a hell of a procedure, which lasted 4 days, 2 of which were waiting for a damn crank position sensor, but I finally got the timing dead on...

WOW! Thank you guys so much for the help and finally fixing this damn car... I have the receipt of the shop that did the timing on this car... THEY INSTALLED THE TENSIONER PULLEY BACKWARDS!! I'm going to give them a call... maybe they can pull up the order or something..

Anyways, to all you guys, and to those who have the "idle problem[video included]" please check your timing, my symptoms were almost dead on to yours, lump idle, gas whore, rich... ect. Engine shaking(turns out my balanceshaft was out of phase, so that was another issue)... guys check your timing!
Time to fill up a full tank of 93 and see how my MPG has increased.

Once again, thanks for all the help!

Glad to hear you got your issues solved. From your pics it was really obvious the timing marks were off so I would imagine it was off more then one tooth. Sounds like those guys who did the TB last really knew what they were doing With all that quality work, I guess your luckey you didn't end up with a major problem. For future reference for guys that are trying to see in their gears are lining up correctly this is what I find best. I tried using a ruler across the center on the cam gear bolts but I don't feel that confident with this method as its hard to tell 100% the center of each bolt (I even went so far as to measure & mark them both) & unless you have the motor jacked up you don't have a direct line of sight so it can throw things off as well. What I like, is the timing marks are supposed to be inline with the head surface so if you take the valve cover off and lay a metal straight edge on the head surface & touch the back side of the cam gears so you can see exactly which tooth is were, you just have to follow each tooth from the back side to the front, which most should be able to handle

Glad to hear it too. Mine had the same prolem as well and is now fixed. It's very nice.

Just threw in the FP2 cams, car sounds unreal.. and feels like a whole new ride.