Timing Issue On Bigport (With pictures & Video)

[GOT-20V]

Hi,

I'm in need of some past experience or diagnose techniques for my timing issue.

I bought the engine without the distributor; I have put it in the car with another distributor & have had no success with it firing correctly.

I have followed the manual with finding TDC and lining up the distributor (refer to pictures) The head on this engine has obviously been rebuilt at some stage if that changed anything.

- Firstly I line the cam gear marks up and the mark on the cam shaft inside the oil cap hole though the mark on the bottom pulley is not insight with these marks, why is this?

- As you can see the car is running but not firing correctly, spark plugs 1 & 4 are black and 2 & 3 are clean.

- Distributor seems to be in correctly with the marks I have followed and with my timing light the pulley marking is nowhere near the 10 degree reading I need to set it to, even with bridging the terminal etc. Even runs like this when the injectors are around the wrong way

I feel like the TDC might not be correct due to not being able to set it the pulley marking to 0 Degree with the top markings.











Some help would be appreciated.

Simon,

[silva]

Looks like your cam is 180 out mate!
( put the dots line up!! )

Take your rocker covers off! And look at the cams they should be pointing away from each other!

Intake cam ( points to the intake )
Exhaust cam ( points to the exhaust )
So try looking at that




Make sure you always look where the knock pins are!



If it looks like this then it's wrong the you have to change the cam gear around


It's pretty easy if you know how to do timing belts and stuff!!

[tottacrolla]

If it were 180 degrees out it wouldn't run at all.
Check that the distributor is fitted correctly as it is easy to get it one tooth out.

[Matt]

The cam timing is set right and isn't the issue. As said, it is so easy to turn the dizzy when inserting it.

I find removing the dizzy cap when you throw the dizzy in helps as you can see the rotor button is sitting on cylinder 1's contact points for the lead.

Here is the guide how to line up the dizzy.

[Big T]

Can't quite make it out in the pics but the dizzy may have been rebuilt at some stage as well and had the gear put on the wrong way. If it's a bigport dizzy and has an open roll pin holding the gear in, it's had a rebuild. Factory will have blanked ends on the pin. If it's a smallport dizzy, the gear is pressed on so can go on any way.

[GOT-20V]

I have been using 2 distributors.

If I use the the rotor cap on lead 1's contact point I will still get the drill mark line up.

Though I have been testing a tooth rotation either way and it will only start on the correct line up. Though it runs as if timing is incorrect.

I'm confident the motor is in good order though I'm really lost on what is happening here. As I have only got it started on the correct sectings & if i'm a tooth either way it won't start.

[Matt]

Hard to tell from the vid, but to me sounds more like running on 3 cyclinders.

Take an injector lead off 1 at a time until u find the one which doesn't make a difference.

[tottacrolla]

Good call this, if it has been put on the wrong way it will be half a tooth out.
Another more accurate way to check is to get No.1 cylinder to the 10 degrees before TDC (compression) timing mark, remove the rotor arm and then line up the closest of the four points on the spinner with the thin vertical bar in the sensor in the distributor. Do this by turning the distributor. Check that you have the right 'point' by re-fitting the rotor arm and looking to see that it is pointing to No.1 plug lead. When you have the right 'point' mark it with white paint for future reference.

[GOT-20V]

Matt, do you think injectors could lead to it running rough and giving me a wrong timing reading?

Do you also think have injectors 2 & 3 switched over initially and trying to start it leaded them to fault.

I have minimal knowledge with the injectors as I have owned one for 7 years now and never had to replace the rail or injectors.

I have 2 spare engines I use for parts so it might be worth a try, I feel from the previous posts the timing is correct & it could be more than that.

[Matt]

Reason I said take the injector plugs off was it is the easiest way of stopping a cylinder from running. Take away the fuel and it shuts it down.

if you pull 1 injector plug off at a time and the engine makes no difference you have found the bad cylinder.

Bigports batch fire the injectors so you can mix up the plugs and it doesn't matter