changing cams without having to retime?

[rocker_topper]

Anyone know if this is possible? If so how? Changing cams and don't wanna have to retime if I don't have to.

 

[bryanwheat]

Not really possible. Some people will zip tie the belt to the cam gears and set them aside, you run the chance of the belt moving on the crank pulley. You will also have to release the tensioner which will likely cause it to come out of time itself. If you can change cams than you can easily set the timing. It is easy to do if you follow instructions well.

 

[marcman804]

I would take the extra 20 or 30 minutes and just retime the engine. In this situation you definitely wanna be safe rather than sorry. When was the last time the belt and hg were changed? If they weren't done recently, now would be a good time to do so.

 

[bryanwheat]

I would take the extra 20 or 30 minutes and just retime the engine. In this situation you definitely wanna be safe rather than sorry. When was the last time the belt and hg were changed? If they weren't done recently, now would be a good time to do so.

A head gasket isn't really a maintenance item. It really isn't a good idea to just replace it for no reason. The water pump, tensioner pulleys and tensioner on the other hand are maintenance items and should be replaced in certain intervals.

 

[marcman804]

A head gasket isn't really a maintenance item. It really isn't a good idea to just replace it for no reason. The water pump, tensioner pulleys and tensioner on the other hand are maintenance items and should be replaced in certain intervals.

Well I see where you coming from with that but if that head has been on that car for the life of that car, lets say the op has 120,000 miles on that head, I would definitely wanna go ahead and replace it while I have all those components apart along with the water pump and tensioners as well. If it isnt bad right now you dont have to change it but why not, its not hard to do.

 

[bryanwheat]

Well I see where you coming from with that but if that head has been on that car for the life of that car, lets say the op has 120,000 miles on that head, I would definitely wanna go ahead and replace it while I have all those components apart along with the water pump and tensioners as well. If it isnt bad right now you dont have to change it but why not, its not hard to do.

It is like ten times more work to go ahead and change the head gasket.

 

[glowryder]

Is this a real question.... If your doing performance upgrades, and asking a question like this, then you should retrun the parts you purchased.

If your going cams, you HAVE to re-time, to do it correctly. Might as well do the Water pump, Replace the tensioner with a mechanical one (thank me later when it takes you 2 mins to time), Head hasket and get your head checked out. yes it costs $$, but its worth it to do it right, or blow your engine, either way.

 

[yukiz]

Yes you have to re time....


Do it right, do it once

 

[miguelmcv]

I can't believe you guys are telling him to change head gasket and once the head is out to get checked.


Wondering, if you guys do that in your car, If you do,,,,, do you guys take the engine out once the head is off and send it to get deck and put some custom pistons?, and obviously once the engine is out, do you get the transmission send to jack and get it to rebuild and may be put some evo gears?, and once the transmission is out, do you guys take off the rear transfer and rebuild it for peace of mind?..

Come on guys, the OP needs an advice of cam removing and not taking his car apart to do such thing (Head Gasket, Head Checked).


To the OP, It is possible but not recommended, I always do it my self, But I have don it so many times with out removing the valve cover, that I can change the cam seals in less then 45mnts...

This is how it works.
Mark the timing belt and the gears, to know where the gears are on the timing belt, this is if the gear moves one tooth while you remove the gear from the cams, you will know it because of the marks not line up.
Before you removed the gear, Get some elastic straps and tide both gears, on the other end of the elastic strap, hook it up on the hood, so when you unbolt one gear and remove it from the cam, the elastic will bring the gear up to the hood and will keep the belt tight, so the belt doesn't jump from the crank, nor the balance shaft.
Here is a pic so you have an Idea of what I am talking about.

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The main point is to keep the belt tight, so it doesn't jump the crank.
You have to compress the timing belt tensioner to do this.
Because is your first time doing this, you need to put the piston (#1) on top dead Center, if you end up jumping the belt from the crank, you all ready have the engine to redo the timing.
If you do it with care, you will be find, But once you finish is always good to turn the engine by hand 4 or 5 times, (Just peace of Mind).

If you think you are not enough to do the job (no offence). is better to leave that to a mechanic who knows very well what he is doing.
Also, is good to change water pump and tensioner if they are not being changed, Hate to say this, But if you don't know when was the last time the timing belt was changed, is good to change it (better save then sorry).

Hope this helps.

Hope this helps.

 

[rocker_topper]

I would take the extra 20 or 30 minutes and just retime the engine. In this situation you definitely wanna be safe rather than sorry. When was the last time the belt and hg were changed? If they weren't done recently, now would be a good time to do so.

Engine was just rebuilt. mechanical tensioner installed along with new water pump and timing belt. bought a new head and now I have a set of cams from and I can retime this thing np was just wandering if it was possible.

Is this a real question.... If your doing performance upgrades, and asking a question like this, then you should retrun the parts you purchased.

If your going cams, you HAVE to re-time, to do it correctly. Might as well do the Water pump, Replace the tensioner with a mechanical one (thank me later when it takes you 2 mins to time), Head hasket and get your head checked out. yes it costs $$, but its worth it to do it right, or blow your engine, either way.

Is this a real answer? I've done all this.engine was just rebuilt. the head was a remanufactured head along with cams, lifters, and rockers. One of the cams has a groove in on of the lobes so now the parts house I got the reman head from supplied another. instead of changing heads I'm going to change lifters, rockers, and cams out. just a friendly word if advice you came across a little bit cross with your first few sentences.

It is like ten times more work to go ahead and change the head gasket. I assume that changing a head gasket it over this guys head any way because he is not even wanting to re time the engine.

I saw a video of how to change cams on the Lancer evo without retiming so was just among if anyone knew a way to do it without retiming. I realize retiming isnt hard. just didn't want to do it if I didn't have to and I'm sure anyone can agree with me that if possible to save time and work they would do it the shortest way.now since no way exists retiming is a must. of course I'm going to do this right. and changing ahead gasket is NOT beyond my mechanical know-how. This is a restore project I'm doing and side then I have rebuilt the engine and replaced top end with all factory remaned head. put in a new tranny And clutch. new slave and master cylinder. new lower control arms and outer tierod ends and front end alignment. out of all this the only labor not performed by myself was the front end alignment.

 

[VelocitàPaola]

Please keep it civil, guys...

 

[Gearhead4G63]

Yea your best bet is to retime, don't want to risk jumping teeth on the gears, also if your tensioner and pump do have age on it it would be a good idea to replace them to prevent futher probkems. Its not hard to do any of em while you have everyhing off already, goodluck.

 

[glowryder]

Miguel: I cant belive if the head were off that you wouldnt have it checked. 50$, if that is cheap insurance to make sure when whoever puts it back together its done right.. .. Not checking only means your a true DSM half asser. thats a fact. .. and actually, yes.. i have everything checked.. i just dont put evo gears in b.c this is a NT forum.. not your 4G6X stuff, which you should go back to..Just because you half ass a car doesnt mean others should. The money you spend up front to to take all the unkonw variables out of a long equation is worth it. Any real performace shop would suggest the same. Granted hes not a shop, we didnt tell him to rip the engine out.. He was simply doing a proceedure that was allready 3/4 of the way into another proceedure (head gasket) that would give him more life (headgasket change etc). since he just recently did those (we/I was not aware) then no, he doesnt need to to do them again..no one cares about your pic.. thats not even the engine hes working on..

Sorry Paul, its hard to stay civil when dam near every NT post has some gst/X guy chiming in , with no clue.. they feel so "entitled" b.c they are already turbo , so they must know. *Note: not every gst/x guy is unknolegeable about our platform, just most of them* -end rant-

"Engine was just rebuilt. mechanical tensioner installed along with new water pump and timing belt. bought a new head and now I have a set of cams from and I can retime this thing np was just wandering if it was possible." Good, Youve done some home work, thats good! Then you ###### dont need to do any of the 'basic maint" stuff as youve already done it. Knowing that id say slap them in and Re-time. with the mechanical tensioner, youve saved yourself headache : )

Dont forget to replace cam seals : ) GL on it. it sound slike you (OP) know what ## doing for the most part . cheers.

 

[rocker_topper]

Miguel: I cant belive if the head were off that you wouldnt have it checked. 50$, if that is cheap insurance to make sure when whoever puts it back together its done right.. .. Not checking only means your a true DSM half asser. thats a fact. .. and actually, yes.. i have everything checked.. i just dont put evo gears in b.c this is a NT forum.. not your 4G6X stuff, which you should go back to..Just because you half ass a car doesnt mean others should. The money you spend up front to to take all the unkonw variables out of a long equation is worth it. Any real performace shop would suggest the same. Granted hes not a shop, we didnt tell him to rip the engine out.. He was simply doing a proceedure that was allready 3/4 of the way into another proceedure (head gasket) that would give him more life (headgasket change etc). since he just recently did those (we/I was not aware) then no, he doesnt need to to do them again..no one cares about your pic.. thats not even the engine hes working on..

Sorry Paul, its hard to stay civil when dam near every NT post has some gst/X guy chiming in , with no clue.. they feel so "entitled" b.c they are already turbo , so they must know. *Note: not every gst/x guy is unknolegeable about our platform, just most of them* -end rant-

"Engine was just rebuilt. mechanical tensioner installed along with new water pump and timing belt. bought a new head and now I have a set of cams from and I can retime this thing np was just wandering if it was possible." Good, Youve done some home work, thats good! Then you ###### dont need to do any of the 'basic maint" stuff as youve already done it. Knowing that id say slap them in and Re-time. with the mechanical tensioner, youve saved yourself headache : )

Dont forget to replace cam seals : ) GL on it. it sound slike you (OP) know what ## doing for the most part . cheers.

First off I was under the impression that it was pretty much standard procedure to have cylinder head checked and decked every time it comes off the block. And yeah I have a very good clue as to what I'm doing. When I bought this car I had no clue but Haynes and this website changed that. this car started out as just blowing ahead gasket and because of that I'm kinda like you and went way overboard making repairs and maintenance stuff. even went as far as to change all rod and main bearings, piston rings, and oil pump. all gaskets and seals top bottom. then bought a new tranny cause 5th was gone and 4th was going in the factory tranny. When I did that job I changed clutch,throughout bearing, clurchfork, pivot ball, both cv axles,slave and master cylinders, and lines. I am a firm believer in work smarter not harder. hence why I replaced so much stuff while I was already around those areas. this car is like A brand new car mechanically. Now just needs a bit of body repair and some TLC on the interior. I can't stand half assing a job. do it right the first time so u won't have to do it again anytime soon. and as far as the 4g6x guys chiming in. I understand your frustration with that. When doing the tranny in my car i posted asking about how to get the clutch pivot ball stud out the bell housing of the transmission.I got over 10gst/x guys telling me that it screws out with a socket. I checked it out and there was nowhere that had the hex pattern of a nut for a socket to grab onto. I replied with this info and more gst/x guyssaid again that's how it was removed. it assent until after I already had the project done that an experienced 420a guy told me they are a bi*** to remove and that all he ever replaces is the Teflon ball cap as the old one has to actually be drilled and pressed out from the back side of the bell housing. Good thing that is what I had done when I installed it.

 

[bullettdsm]

I can't believe you guys are telling him to change head gasket........Come on guys, the OP needs an advice of cam removing and not taking his car apart to do such thing (Head Gasket, Head Checked).

Agreed. We are actually talking about cam caps and cam gear bolts. Nowhere near pull the head.

To the OP, It is possible but not recommended, .............The main point is to keep the belt tight, so it doesn't jump the crank.
.

This^

I did do cams one time using a variation of Miguel's method. I did it because I basically wanted to see how hard it would be. I didn't like it and it was not fun. I will not do that again.

But I absolutely understand the drive/thought process behind doing it. I change a lot of stuff up top often (from racing and testing). I actually do have a tool in mind that I could make that would make it much easier. But until I do, I'll not go that route again.

Imo, if you want to try it, go ahead. Just be aware of the worst case scenario of screwing up the timing enough so that you hit valves.

MB

 

[rocker_topper]

Agreed. We are actually talking about cam caps and cam gear bolts. Nowhere near pull the head.




This^

I did do cams one time using a variation of Miguel's method. I did it because I basically wanted to see how hard it would be. I didn't like it and it was not fun. I will not do that again.

But I absolutely understand the drive/thought process behind doing it. I change a lot of stuff up top often (from racing and testing). I actually do have a tool in mind that I could make that would make it much easier. But until I do, I'll not go that route again.

Imo, if you want to try it, go ahead. Just be aware of the worst case scenario of screwing up the timing enough so that you hit valves.

MB

which is why I am going to re-time this thing. hardest part of re timing is pulling the crank pulley off. That's why I didn't want to do it if there was a way. Anyone know of a way to time without removing the crank pulley? That will decrease working time by about 20 minutes or more there cause I won't have to fool with the alternator or its belt.

 

[bryanwheat]

which is why I am going to re-time this thing. hardest part of re timing is pulling the crank pulley off. That's why I didn't want to do it if there was a way. Anyone know of a way to time without removing the crank pulley? That will decrease working time by about 20 minutes or more there cause I won't have to fool with the alternator or its belt.

The crank pulley has to come off to get the timing cover off which has to come off to release the tensioner. You will not be doing anything without first releasing the tension from the belt.

 

[glowryder]

Bullet come on.. If he is redoing timing like he should ( agreed not impossible, but why not redo it) hes pretty close to removing the head. only what an exhaust manifold and some Head bolts stand in his way? Im alittle surprised that a person with ## level of DSM know how isnt agreeing. Granted he already changed that stuff, and i also agree, no need to go back over it. But if he had not, which we were orginally assuming, then im a little surprised the "while your in there" wouldnt have a pplied. Oh well, GL OP, i think youve got it.

 

[jrohner]

It's really easy to swap cams if you make/buy the tensioner tool (just a long bot). You can swap cams without pulling the timing belt / timing cover off. You just need to make sure and use some bungie cords to hold tension on the timing belt so it doesn't jump a tooth at the crank. Make sure timing marks are lined up before you pull it apart so it's easy to verify it's correct when you put it back together. Put marks on the timing belt as well so you KNOW where it goes on the cam gears. It's probably best to zip tie the belt to the cam gears, but still mark the belt too just in case they jump at any point during the process. I've done this a few times, and it's SO much easier than pulling the belt all the way off the engine. ONLY do this if you have a fairly fresh timing belt, if you have a decent amount of miles on the belt or if the teeth are cracked, get a new one along with the bearings and water pump.

The lifters might extend when you pull the cams out, so make sure and let it sit for a while before you crank it over once it's back together (or just pull the lifters and bleed them).

 

[Colt4G63 also]

Why not just zip tie the cam sprockets to the belt, release the tensioner pressure with a long bolt, and change one cam at a time while holding upward pressure on the cam sprocket the entire time the cam is removed.

There are several ways to make sure the crank stays at TDC, and it's easy enough to check without removing the lower timing cover. The worst case senario is that the rear balance shaft could come out of sync if you get sloppy.

EDIT: ^^^ Beat me to it! ^^^ That's to be expected when I walk away from my computer mid-post

 

[bryanwheat]

It's really easy to swap cams if you make/buy the tensioner tool (just a long bot). You can swap cams without pulling the timing belt / timing cover off. You just need to make sure and use some bungie cords to hold tension on the timing belt so it doesn't jump a tooth at the crank. Make sure timing marks are lined up before you pull it apart so it's easy to verify it's correct when you put it back together. Put marks on the timing belt as well so you KNOW where it goes on the cam gears. It's probably best to zip tie the belt to the cam gears, but still mark the belt too just in case they jump at any point during the process. I've done this a few times, and it's SO much easier than pulling the belt all the way off the engine. ONLY do this if you have a fairly fresh timing belt, if you have a decent amount of miles on the belt or if the teeth are cracked, get a new one along with the bearings and water pump.

The lifters might extend when you pull the cams out, so make sure and let it sit for a while before you crank it over once it's back together (or just pull the lifters and bleed them).

He has a 420a, the long bolt to release the tensioner doesn't apply here.

Why not just zip tie the cam sprockets to the belt, release the tensioner pressure with a long bolt, and change one cam at a time while holding upward pressure on the cam sprocket the entire time the cam is removed.

There are several ways to make sure the crank stays at TDC, and it's easy enough to check without removing the lower timing cover. The worst case senario is that the rear balance shaft could come out of sync if you get sloppy.

EDIT: ^^^ Beat me to it! ^^^ That's to be expected when I walk away from my computer mid-post

Once again, he has a 420a, the long bolt to back the tension doesn't apply.

Bullet come on.. If he is redoing timing like he should ( agreed not impossible, but why not redo it) hes pretty close to removing the head. only what an exhaust manifold and some Head bolts stand in his way? Im alittle surprised that a person with ## level of DSM know how isnt agreeing. Granted he already changed that stuff, and i also agree, no need to go back over it. But if he had not, which we were orginally assuming, then im a little surprised the "while your in there" wouldnt have a pplied. Oh well, GL OP, i think youve got it.

Not everyone goes by this theory. It isn't half-assing anything to not replace a head gasket while you have the valve cover and timing belt off. There is no need to go replacing things that aren't broken. When you have been working on cars for a long time you realize that there is no point.

 

[WES_393]

Not everyone goes by this theory. It isn't half-assing anything to not replace a head gasket while you have the valve cover and timing belt off. There is no need to go replacing things that aren't broken. When you have been working on cars for a long time you realize that there is no point.

+1 A head gasket is not a maintenance item that wears out with age or miles. I've seen brand new HG's leak and 20 year old HG's hold 30psi (6-bolt 4g63 of course). So if there are no signs of it leaking, leave it alone. Replacing a perfectly good HG will do nothing but waste your time and money.

 

[bullettdsm]

It's really easy to swap cams if you make/buy the tensioner tool (just a long bot).

Be aware that he has a 420a NOT a 4G63. Not applicable.

Why not just zip tie the cam sprockets to the belt, release the tensioner pressure with a long bolt, EDIT: ^^^ Beat me to it! ^^^ That's to be expected when I walk away from my computer mid-post

Guys you know to watch for the 420a....oops Bryan beat me to it!

 

[DSMBanditFZ6]

Hey now im a gsx guy. And I know it all . Since chrylser and mitsu are one and tge same, I would say I am a master of your 420a. Hell, since I popped the hood on a Mercedes once and seen daimlier chrysler on the hood. Im pretty much an expert at mercs too. . Its kinda like a crossfire, just fancy and whatnot.

Just kidding bro, we don't all pretend to know what we are talking about.

Cheers!

 

[DSMnOOb00]

I vote for just re-time, the pros dont out weigh the possable cons

if its already rebuilt, then I would follow this phrase "if it aint broke, dont fix it! upgrade it!"

but what do I know I'm just a DSMNooB