Misaligned Ignition Timing Marks

[Girvin]

Ive got yet another odd question.............upon doing a valve seal job on my car, I noticed that at TDC my crank pulley timing mark doesnt line up with the TDC mark on the timing cover.......

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The "red dot" is where my crank pulley mark is when at TDC. Im guessing that this may have something to do with my head/block being machined during my latest rebuild or something to do with a different sized pulley during the rebuild? But thats not really the matter. Another thing I should mention is that it was like this before I removed the timing belt and after I retimed the cams/crank.

With my marks like this.........how should I go about setting my base timing? Should I measure the distance between the TDC mark on the timing cover and the TDC mark of the pulley then mark the same distance from the 5deg BTDC mark?

Has anyone ever encoutered this before?

 

[Girvin]

Damn Imagestation,.........if the pic link isnt working.... it just shows that my crank pulley mark is about a 1/2" ahead(advanced) of the timing cover TDC mark.........when the motor is at TDC.

 

[Girvin]

Anyone?........Im installing a new head tomorrow and want to get this figured.......one idea I have so far is to just make a new timing mark on the crank pulley to line up with the TDC mark on the timing cover......but making sure I do this while at actual TDC. From research I found that the points being off may be caused by the machining of the head and block. Sound true?

 

[steve]

The crank pulleys on DSMs are well known for separating where the bonded rubber joins the inner hub from the outer pulley. If all the engine timing marks are correct then a close inspection of the crank pulley is called for.

Steve

 

[Girvin]

Already checked that , but yes it could have been the problem, but it isnt......its in good shape