so yesterday while delivering a pizza, wham, car starts running like crap.  thought I threw a major vacuum line, but upon further inspection both passenger side cylinders were dead.  no change with spark plug wires unplugged.

 

limped it home, no loss of oil or coolant, no smoke (beyond normal), heat was good, oil pressure was good, just running on left bank only.

 

primary suspicion is the passenger timing belt (or associated idlers and pulleys), followed by a possible head gasket or bad intake blow out.

 

will start checking in the morning when I get up, but figured I would throw this out to see if there's any ideas in case its not the timing belt.  you all will probably get up earlier than I do.

probably timing belt, they don't last long, atleast you don't have to worry about bent valves, you would be screwed.. and it would not be your day.

That dead, I'd think timing belt. Very surprised the pieces didn't take out the other one.

well its the belt, shredded the teeth on the crank side.  next question is how easy should the cam on that side turn?  there's 2 spots in it that are really rugged to move, though I would expect that's the part where the springs are tight.  should it be turn able by hand the whole round?  I was using the old belt to turn it, since it wouldn't go by hand.  it moves easy once its near the timing mark to set the belt

It's turnable by hand but there is a lot of resistance. Enough that you'd probably be hurting your hand a bit to turn it, but I've done it.

well its together and running fine.  just did the one belt on the cheap, hopefully I can get my new motor on line before the other half breaks or one of the tensioners blows up.

I know some one who ran a ea71 home with one head falling off.

The cam pulleys are hard to turn by hand when you are at the position to open a valve.  Normal.

If you don't retighten the belts after initially installing them, they get loose and are then more vulnerable to stripping off the belt teeth.

Yes, after installing, turn engine by hand a couple revolutions. Then set tension. Run for 10 or 20 seconds. Check how they track on the pulleys. Re check the tension.

I ran it for a about 30 seconds with everything off of the front, no pulleys or covers on it just to make sure it was tracking well.  I dont remember if I reset the tensioner afterwards though, ill have to check.