If timing was off one tooth at the...

[90CherryTSI]

crank sprocket, or any sprocket, could you tell right off? My gf has a 2g and we (my brother who is a certified ASE mechanic and myself) just did a timing belt and water pump on her car. We couldn't get all the marks lined up so we took the belt off and put it back on about 3 times. After the last time we walked away for half an hour, got with his friend who is ASE certified and does alot of import work and he looked at it, and we realized the marks on the car were not accurate timing marks (the white out marks not the lines or arrows). We put it back on for the fourth time and everything lined up perfectly somehow. Go figure that. Well we started it up and drove it back from Dallas to Austin after checking everything out and she's noticed that her idle has a tiny tiny miss in it. So much so that a normal dsm'er would attribute to a dsm but she didn't have before and of course she picks up on it! :thumbdown :thumbdown Anyway when it misses which at idle is like once every 4 seconds, so if you stand by the exhaust and count 1...2...3...4.. you'll see the exhaust tip shake a little bit and like it stops then starts again, you guys know what I'm saying. We quadrouple quintouple or whatever checked the timing belt, have driven the car in excess of 125 mph since then, it doesn't shake, it doesn't lag, everything seems fine besides this tiny idle thing. Does this have anything to do with maybe some sprocket being off by 1 tooth? I rechecked all vacuums I had to disconnect etc and they're all on. He did yank the the new 7ES plugs and say for their age (about a month or 6 weeks) there was way way to much carbon on them as in they're the wrong ones even after I explained to him how DSM's work. Anyway I know with dirty plugs etc it can also cause this so tonight I'm going to clean the plugs. Anyone in Austin TX have a timing light I can borrow maybe? Or any ideas? It didn't have this before of course, do they ever...*sigh* Thanks for the help guys!

 

[phastalon]

definately check the plugs and clean them then let us know

 

[loreak]

if it was off one tooth the miss would be very bad, ive had it happen

your looking at an issue with plugs/wires or something else, my old car did that, would miss every 4 seconds or so, never figured out what caused it

 

[GSGoinFast]

when you say misses, do you mean missfire, or what? and does the block shake at all? does it jerk at all when your driving? does it smell funny? mine started out by just jerking the slightest almost unnoticable amount in 3rd gear. then progressed to misfire 3 or 4 times every gear. at idle the block shook like crazy and it sounded horrible. If by misses u mean misfiring, definatly check your plugs, but also check your wires. my #1 wire shorted out, and the plug in the #1 was all carboned up because of it. i replaced the plugs and wires and it runs fine now. there not that expensive so try giving it a shot.

 

[90CherryTSI]

and it stopped. Weird it didnt do that before of course....surprising that just cleaning em with a wire brush fixed that, guess it's something I should be doing every month or so anyway Thx for the info, just curious to see how they could already be causing problems after a month. Possibly b/c that's all we replaced, didnt touch the wires, maybe now she will *sigh* thx!