2000 The Answer sluggish after engine swap with timing belt change

Cam timing looks fine, as long as there's nothing weird with the actual camshafts. Remember, if it's off by a tooth it's off by a complete tooth. It's quite obvious.

If the cam gears were removed, make sure they're back on correctly. The pin on the intake cam should be in the slot that points to I, the pin on the exhaust cam should be in the slot that aligns with E. Easy to check, just spin that center bolt out and the gear will stay in place on the cam as you eyeball it.

TDC on the timing belt pulley is always correct unless there's been massive crank nose damage. Highly unlikely that's the case.

How well is this engine known? You didn't just do a timing belt, you also did an engine swap and it's not clear where the engine came from in the first place.

Thanks for the review Keith! I'll double check the pulley positions when he gets back over here.. I had a spare cam/pulley assembly here, I noticed that there's 3 slots, would the engine run If it was off by 120°?

The engine came from a local spec miata racer/miata opt-out house place that has a pretty good reputation. I'd bank on us screwing up the installation somehow first before blaming the engine :)

So the tally of the total score here:

We've got a new car to us that we got cheap because the radiator failed on the highway so the head warped due to overheating.

We've got an engine that was (assumed) working correctly in the donor car previous to being pulled.

And to yokels that decided to do a timing belt while the engine was out before verifying installation.

What could possibly go wrong? :)

It probably wouldn't run if it was off by 120*. I can't see how.

I would want to take a look at that cat for sure, you should be able to inspect it visually.

The shop that sold you the engine probably didn't have it running before they sold it if it came out of a salvage car. Just FYI. I don't suppose it's throwing any codes?

Alright, I wouldn't expect it to run a well as it does 120°, either.

My friends'dad actually got to hear/see it running when they did the compression test for him (before it was pulled).

It's not throwing any codes. It hasn't run enough to go through a complete emissions cycle yet, though..

The manifold and cat is almost out, I'll keep you guys updated to what we find.

Fail. Looks like the main cat of the manifold is good.. You can see through it perfectly fine. Next step is the secondary cat. Or maybe a leak down test..

Question, what killed the old motor?

Another possibility, internal muffler clog from a rusted out baffle or something to that effect.

The old motor died when the advance auto parts radiator blew up on the highway about a week after it was put in.

We're thinking it may be related to something like that.. We need to build a pressure tester, He got over to my shop too late to get to the hardware store, and I didn't have enough supplies to build it here.

For some reason, this car has the california exhaust with two cats instead of the normal federal one. We're a long way from Cali over here in CT. I know I have a spare federal manifold, so the next step is to pull off the "secondary" cat and inspec tit. Then we'll grab the stuff to make a pressure gauge.

WonkoTheSane wrote:

noddaz wrote: Use a vacuum gauge attached to the intake manifold to confirm the plugged exhaust.

What's the procedure for this? Do you have a good write-up on what I'm looking for? I do have both a vacuum gauge and a vacuum generator..

Simple. Attach gauge to a vacuum port. Start the engine, vacuum reading will drop to zero if severely plugged or the needle will fluctuate . Be aware that there are other things that can cause this reading. The vacuum gauge is a forgotten tool. Reading it is a forgotten art.

WonkoTheSane wrote: We're a long way from Cali over here in CT.

Yeah, but you're right next to NY and they were running CA-spec emissions in '00.

Any luck with figuring out the problem?

Not completely.. We got rid of the pre-cat by switching to a federal manifold and extended the o2 sensors to the appropriate place for the main cat. While the car was up we swapped out the fuel filter.

Those two things seemed to improve it noticeably, but we're still only at 9.1 second 0-60 times. The next step is to run it low on gas, dump in a can of seafoam, run it for a bit and then fill it up with fresh gas. We're not sure how long the gas that's in there has been sitting.

Might just be me, but that belt looks...loose! Check your tensioner to make sure it is pushing the belt tight.

Bruce

Wait, you timed it to #4 cyl.?

egnorant wrote: Might just be me, but that belt looks...loose! Check your tensioner to make sure it is pushing the belt tight. Bruce

Yeah, it does in the picture. Good eye! We were playing with the tension trying to see how much "play" the cams had if you wiggled them. Even though we set it based on the procedure, we reset it again while we had it open.

iceracer wrote: Wait, you timed it to #4 cyl.?

Whoops, sorry, that was a typo.. Turns out 4 is right above 1 on the number pad :)