fuel
07-14-2007, 11:30 PM
Hey guys I posted this on another forum in a couple seperate posts but I thought I would combine them all into one here and see if anyone could shed some light on the problem:
(First post)
While putting in replacement engine in my '94 E54A MIVEC Galant I did the cambelt and tensioner while it was out. Now I must have stuffed up the timing or something as the car doesn't like idling and farts/generally misfires until around 3k rpm. Has serious loss of power and increased fuel consumption too. At first I thought it was ignition related so swapped spark plugs/leads/coil packs over and it was the same. Then I discovered when it went into MD mode (running on the rear bank of cylinders) it idled and sounded good. I pulled each injector plug (the clips had broken) to see if an injector wasn't firing but as I pulled each one it ran worse.
Now when I had the engine out I was pretty sure the cam timing was spot on. I did notice on the front bank though the notches on the cam gears did not fully line up with the marks on the rocker cover - but it was closer how it was than it would have been if I moved it a tooth over in the other direction. With the tensioner all set with the recommended protrusion, and after rotating crank a couple times everything looked fine. Once the engine was in after it did this I checked the timing of the front bank compared to crank pulley and it was out a full tooth.
Does anyone know what gives here? Is there any way to bring the front bank back in time without having to remove the cambelt all over again (such a prick of a job when engine is out, let alone when engine is IN the car)?
(Second post, about a week later)
Well guys I'm really baffled with this cam timing. I pulled the covers off today and when the crank gear was 100% spot on with the notch both banks seemed to be all lined up, although the front bank is almost half a tooth out while the rear bank is very nearly lined up (about 1/4 tooth out). I'm not sure if this is meant to be normal? If I moved the cam gears over a tooth they would be out even more so.
Here are some pictures to show what I mean:
Here's the front bank (left hand side of crank) - exhaust gear first, inlet second:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam1.jpg
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam2.jpg
Here's the rear bank - inlet gear first, exhaust second. I couldn't get the camera dead on so it will appear the misalignment is more exaggerated here, however this bank is more lined up than the other:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam3.jpg
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam4.jpg
The tensioner seems to be set fine too with the specified amount of extrusion from the hydraulic tensioner.
I can't figure out why it's running rough. At idle the engine shakes around and you can hear from the exhaust note it's not running on all cylinders smoothly. If you increase the revs it seems to get alot smoother but it's down on power. I would have figured if it was ignition related (ie spark plugs, coil packs, leads, ignitor etc) there would be a misfire throughout the rev range. When the engine was in my other Galant it ran excellent and the spark plugs were replaced 10,000kms prior with NGK BKR7EK-C-N11 plugs (which is the recommended plug). The only thing I did to the engine was change the cambelt and tensioner while it was out, and used the inlet manifold upper section from the original engine, of which I'm pretty sure there are no vacuum leaks.
And here's the weird part, with this engine being an MD engine, when it's warmed up and idling it will drop the front bank of cylinders and run on the rear bank - when it does this, the engine runs fine - it idle's smoothly and even though you can tell it's running on one bank, the exhaust note is smooth. This suggests all is well with the rear bank of cylinders (ie cam timing, spark, fuel etc).
Another thought I was having is maybe I bent a couple valves in the front bank when setting the timing, as the cam gears were really difficult to get to stay in place while putting the cambelt on. The engine was at #1 TDC at the time so I don't know if that would do damage or not. Surely the force wont be that much to bend the valves. I guess I wont know until I do a compression check on the front bank.
SO I'm just wondering if anyone has any slight idea as to what the problem is? This car is almost proving too much trouble than it's worth :P
Cheers,
Phil
(First post)
While putting in replacement engine in my '94 E54A MIVEC Galant I did the cambelt and tensioner while it was out. Now I must have stuffed up the timing or something as the car doesn't like idling and farts/generally misfires until around 3k rpm. Has serious loss of power and increased fuel consumption too. At first I thought it was ignition related so swapped spark plugs/leads/coil packs over and it was the same. Then I discovered when it went into MD mode (running on the rear bank of cylinders) it idled and sounded good. I pulled each injector plug (the clips had broken) to see if an injector wasn't firing but as I pulled each one it ran worse.
Now when I had the engine out I was pretty sure the cam timing was spot on. I did notice on the front bank though the notches on the cam gears did not fully line up with the marks on the rocker cover - but it was closer how it was than it would have been if I moved it a tooth over in the other direction. With the tensioner all set with the recommended protrusion, and after rotating crank a couple times everything looked fine. Once the engine was in after it did this I checked the timing of the front bank compared to crank pulley and it was out a full tooth.
Does anyone know what gives here? Is there any way to bring the front bank back in time without having to remove the cambelt all over again (such a prick of a job when engine is out, let alone when engine is IN the car)?
(Second post, about a week later)
Well guys I'm really baffled with this cam timing. I pulled the covers off today and when the crank gear was 100% spot on with the notch both banks seemed to be all lined up, although the front bank is almost half a tooth out while the rear bank is very nearly lined up (about 1/4 tooth out). I'm not sure if this is meant to be normal? If I moved the cam gears over a tooth they would be out even more so.
Here are some pictures to show what I mean:
Here's the front bank (left hand side of crank) - exhaust gear first, inlet second:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam1.jpg
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam2.jpg
Here's the rear bank - inlet gear first, exhaust second. I couldn't get the camera dead on so it will appear the misalignment is more exaggerated here, however this bank is more lined up than the other:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam3.jpg
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l230/te71se/94%20Galant/cam4.jpg
The tensioner seems to be set fine too with the specified amount of extrusion from the hydraulic tensioner.
I can't figure out why it's running rough. At idle the engine shakes around and you can hear from the exhaust note it's not running on all cylinders smoothly. If you increase the revs it seems to get alot smoother but it's down on power. I would have figured if it was ignition related (ie spark plugs, coil packs, leads, ignitor etc) there would be a misfire throughout the rev range. When the engine was in my other Galant it ran excellent and the spark plugs were replaced 10,000kms prior with NGK BKR7EK-C-N11 plugs (which is the recommended plug). The only thing I did to the engine was change the cambelt and tensioner while it was out, and used the inlet manifold upper section from the original engine, of which I'm pretty sure there are no vacuum leaks.
And here's the weird part, with this engine being an MD engine, when it's warmed up and idling it will drop the front bank of cylinders and run on the rear bank - when it does this, the engine runs fine - it idle's smoothly and even though you can tell it's running on one bank, the exhaust note is smooth. This suggests all is well with the rear bank of cylinders (ie cam timing, spark, fuel etc).
Another thought I was having is maybe I bent a couple valves in the front bank when setting the timing, as the cam gears were really difficult to get to stay in place while putting the cambelt on. The engine was at #1 TDC at the time so I don't know if that would do damage or not. Surely the force wont be that much to bend the valves. I guess I wont know until I do a compression check on the front bank.
SO I'm just wondering if anyone has any slight idea as to what the problem is? This car is almost proving too much trouble than it's worth :P
Cheers,
Phil