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EJ22 crank sprocket/cam timing peculiarity


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Hi all,

I’m new here. 

This is regarding my bosses 96 legacy with an ej22. It was due for a timing belt and he had me do the job. The car had no issues and ran fine, plenty of power, (for an ej22) etc. It does have a check engine light that has been on for years which I was told is for a cat/o2 sensor code, but I don’t own a scan tool so I couldn’t check myself. We live in an emissions exempt part of Oregon so that’s not going to be fixed unless it somehow turns out to be part of this problem, which I doubt. 

When I removed the timing cover and lined up the timing marks I discovered that the crank was two belt teeth retarded from the cams. The cams were correct in relation to each other. I removed the tensioner and belt, set the timing “correctly”, reinstalled the old tensioner and old belt, and the car seemed to run fine, maybe a little better, (hard to tell) however I didn’t drive it at that point since it was all torn apart, and I proceeded with the job.

Once it was all back together with the new belt kit and the timing “corrected” I test drove the car, and it runs lousy. It’s now down on power, and the idle is slightly rough, although I don’t believe it is misfiring.

It is worth noting that this engine was rebuilt by a guy who has a reputation for crap work, and although he sent the long block to someone else, I don’t know who installed the timing components. 

The crank bolt was tight, the key intact, nothing obviously damaged that I could see. I would love to be able to use a scope to look at cam/crank correlation waveform and a known good waveform and compare them, but I don’t have that gear so that’s not going to happen  

Has anyone ever seen this issue? I’m going to tear it apart again and put it back to the way it was, but something is up and it’s beyond me, and I want to know. 

Thanks for your help,

Nick

 

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1. It ran fine

2. You changed the timing

3. It runs poorly

Keep in mind we only have words to work with but that looks glaringly obvious.

put the timing back where it was.

Are you using the wrong marks - it’s the dash not the dot, which has been confused before.

Tensioner isn’t holding  

but you seem confident that’s not it, so describe or post photos of the timing marks. 

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find the tooth count for that engine - good triple check for timing.

could the crank sprocket have partly sheared its key on the crank?

older soobs often have bad knock sensors, check that...but, hard to argue with Ido's post above, highly likely something you touched is now the problem.

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Thanks for the replies. 

I absolutely agree that whatever I touched is the problem, however I’m still puzzled as to why the engine liked being two teeth off of “correct” timing. I will be tearing it apart today, I’ll post pictures when I do. 

Good day gentlemen. 

Nick

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10 hours ago, idosubaru said:

Are you using the wrong marks - it’s the dash not the dot, which has been confused before.

Likely this.  There's a tiny indent on top of oil pump casing.  Line it up there, it be near the trailing edge of the crank sensor

image.jpeg.53587dd8cc4533dffc75b5e79c61a907.jpeg

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Gentlemen,

I should have my tools confiscated for wasting your time. When I pulled the timing cover off, it was immediately clear that I had mis read the timing mark on the crank sensor reluctor wheel. I saw a mark where there was none. It was in fact two teeth off from where I had it, and was originally correct, as I’m sure you all yelled at your screens while rolling your eyes. Of course it was, how could it not have been and have still run fine? It’s now corrected and the car runs like it should.

Man I looked so hard and long at it the first time I don’t know how I messed that up, but I did. Lesson learned. Foot in mouth.

Thank you for your replies and your time.

Nick

 

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7 hours ago, NPZ said:

Gentlemen,

I should have my tools confiscated for wasting your time. When I pulled the timing cover off, it was immediately clear that I had mis read the timing mark on the crank sensor reluctor wheel. I saw a mark where there was none. It was in fact two teeth off from where I had it, and was originally correct, as I’m sure you all yelled at your screens while rolling your eyes. Of course it was, how could it not have been and have still run fine? It’s now corrected and the car runs like it should.

Man I looked so hard and long at it the first time I don’t know how I messed that up, but I did. Lesson learned. Foot in mouth.

Thank you for your replies and your time.

Nick

 

nah - CHEERS for easy fixes!

good on you for getting in there and solving it and not blaming the government.

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