Head Resurfaced...Now can't time?

[mharrison]

I fixed a broken timing belt on my 97 eclipse 420A NT. I had the head reworked by a local cylinder head shop. The guy says"Oh, that was a 420A eclipse. I was thinking it was the 4G63." (I add this to say the guy is "familiar" with this engine, or at least the head.) They rebuilt the head and resurfaced it.

I put it back together, it runs like crap. I've had enough. I need my car. (I've also had my Lincoln LS towed home and and had to replace $200 worth of dealer only hoses and plastic parts.)

I put it & the eclipse in the $hop.
I told them what I had done and that I suspected I got the timing off by a tooth. I haven't confirmed this. It's just a gut feeling based on what a PITA the timing belt was.

The shop is saying that if the head was resurfaced, it will never time right without adjustable cam gears or a new head. I can understand if I had had the head heavily shaved to try and bump compression, but a simple resurface? I'm calling B.S. on this one.

What do you guys think?

 

[VelocitàPaola]

How much did they shave off? Do you know?

I can't imagine that anything less than 0.020" would cause problems, but I could be very wrong (someone please jump in to confirm or deny this).

 

[Talon ESI-T]

My head has .010 shaved and the timing was off. its the nature of the beast, you will need adj cam gears.

Terry

 

[mharrison]

The guy said that he did a very minor resurfacing. He mentioned that shaving it to bump compression (like 50 or 60 thousandths) would require adjustable cam gears, but that he reworks the heads for the local Mitsu and Dodge dealers on a regular basis.

This head shop has been around since at least the mid 80's. I don't know.... the guy who runs it is an ASE certified master machinist....

 

[mharrison]

The depth of cut on a resurfacing as a rule is limited to no more than .0005 to .001 in.

 

[1.8laser90]

i asked the guy who rebiulds the heads on my cars and he said that i wouldn't need adj cam gears if i shaved my head. He thought it was kinda funny but he told me that wasn't true. But my head is getting shaved here within in a couple weeks so ill guess ill find out for myself cause im gunna have it shaved a good bit to up my compression a tad. there was a eclipse for sale down the road from me with the 420a and he said he had the head rebiuld and shaved also and he didn't have any ajustible cam gears and it ran pretty good.. but every engine is diferent

 

[mharrison]

Well, as I suspected, the timing was just off by a tooth and had to be redone.

No problem with the head being resurfaced, no magical gremlins, no phantom electical problem......

Just my bad attempt at getting the timing set correctly!