CAS won't let me set ignition timing right.

[awd4g63]

My car's been running very poorly after my rebuild. I seem to think it's my ignition timing. The car has no power at all (so slow that it's almost dangerous to drive in traffic), idles choppy, and just all in all won't drive right. After getting everything back together with new plugs, wires, new CAS, new coil pack, new bottom end and top end (2g/1g pistons/rods... complete stock head), and basically everything you would replace during a rebuild. Timing belt was done right, and I did a compression test just to be sure... gauge was right around 180 on all 4 cylinders. I went to try and set the ignition timing by grounding both the OBD1 plug and the plug on the firewall and using a timing light. I got everything hooked up right, timing light was working great and all and went to adjust the CAS, but could even get the mark on my harmonic balancer to line up at all with the Timing/TDC marks on the timing cover. If I retarded the CAS all the way, it would get within an inch or so of hitting the marks, and with the CAS advanced around halfway or more, the car hardly ran at all. I pulled the CAS to see if it was in the wrong way (brought the #1 cylinder to TDC and lined the marks up on the CAS) and reinserted it. It was right to begin with, but for the hell of it, I flipped the tabs 180 degrees and put it back in and the car ran exactly the same as it did. So, I thought the CAS was bad, so I swapped out a known good one off of a friend's car and put it on mine. It ran the exact same way on my car with the same TDC mark results. The one I had on my car ran fine on his car.

If anyone has any help they can offer, please do... I'm tired of messing with this thing and I'm running out of motivation and ideas...

Thanks,
Jon

 

[steve]

Sounds like it's time to double check that the harmonic dampner timing mark is still accurate.
Pull the #1 plug, put a wooden dowel donw in the clyinder to check for TDC and make sure that the timing marks on the cams and harmonic dampner/front cover line up.

Steve

 

[toybreaker]

I think Steve is right about the crank harmonic dampner slipping on the hub

A quick way to verify a lot of things would be to abuse your buddy again. Put both cars at tdc #1, and pull the cas and top timing covers off both cars. Quadriple check the cam timing marks. I've seen a couple of funky gears with different/missing marks...the cam dowels should both be facing straight up at tdc #1, with the crank showing tdc against the front cover. Look at the cas drive slot in the intake cam, is it in the same position as your buddies?

I notice from your profile it's a jdm cyclone engine. I really don't know anything about those engines. I know it's a 4g63t, but there's some differences from year to year, and from jdm to american production...so it's possible there's some wierdness in there somewhere. Did anything strike you as strange? Different plugs you had to change anything like that? Did you use the intake and ignition stuff from the car or the engine? Which cas are you using? does it match what the ecu is expecting?

Let's start with the basics and go from there...

Tell us what you find from a comprehensive visual inspection.

 

[awd4g63]

Haven't checked the harmonic balancer yet, Steve, but I will do tonight when I get home.

We pulled his CAS and mine with both #1 cylinders at TDC according to the marks. Both CAS' came out the same way, with the marks lined up and all.

As for the JDM engine, this will be the second one I've had in the car, and I'm using most of the parts off of my old engine, which I know were in great working condition. Parts I'm currently using off the old setup include everything from the coil pack to the injectors (stock). There's nothing different about this setup than my last, something's just screwed up and I can't for the life of me figure out what. I'll check the harmonic balancer tonight, but if it's slipping on me, then what's -really- causing me all this power loss?

 

[toybreaker]

I was hoping it was going to be something a visual inspection/comparison would find.

At least we know it's not some funky difference in the intake cam cas drive slot, or something esoteric like that.

I don't want to confuse the issue, so this where I leave the troubleshooting to people who are familiar with your set up.

I wish you the best of luck in finding this problem, and please post the answer, I'm curious!

 

[awd4g63]

Haven't been able to post since the site was down... here's an update if anyone feels like reading it. I still can't figure out what is wrong with it.

http://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1377107

 

[oldman]

Are you sure your plug wires are in correct order?

 

[AL92]

The balancers do slip and separate and are junk.I just bought a fluidampr that cant' slip.the factory balancers slip at random mileage.I had a few fall apart already. They cause more problems than just bad timing. They can grind into things as well doing various amounts of damage.

My one had the marks off and then finally let go and the timing marks would rotate right around .
I have heard engine timing belt being off a tooth causing rought idle and low vacuum.Two syptoms my 91 turbo has right now.

 

[Slapnut]

My JDM 4g63 did / does the same thing. I tried everything i could think of, then said screw it. I drove it a little bit yesterday and it seems to have cleared up for the moment. I think my biggest problem is air flow. This pig sucks major air in, which is weird.