I recently had my engine let go on me and upon running the car it sounded like the connecting rod let go(loud squeaks clunks misfire) whole 9. I changed to a sohc block and upon installing timing belt the engine seizes. With the belt off the crank and cams will spin freely. The engine will get 1/8 turn off timing marks and as soon as the intake is about to close and exhaust open on cyl #1 it locks. All pulleys on the timing belt move. Has anyone run into this before? From what I had read on here many people have done this swap successfully. If it were a bent valve I would assume the cam would just ride over it. Is there a difference in deck clearance between years of the sohc?

Sounds like your timing marks are off. Did you remove the cam sprockets? They all look similar but the timing notch marks are in different places on each.

 

With all the notch marks properly lined up on the cams, the arrows on the cam sprockets will all be pointing the same direction 45° clockwise. The arrows are not used for timing, but they can shed a clue as to whether your sprockets are in the wrong places.

 

The crankshaft timing mark is on the back edge of the sprocket. The key on the sprocket should be straight down at 6 o'clock and the small arrow mark on the face should be at 3 o'clock.