What if engine timing is off by 1 tooth?

[Jackal1337]

I'm trying to understand why I have been hearing people say to set the timing belt off counterclockwise by one tooth on the crank. Is it to take up slack or what? Cause when I did my timing belt there was hardly any. I lined up all the marks, tightened it all up and it ran fine. What kind of symptoms would it have if it is one tooth off?

[ChargerX3]

it changes timing of your valves. dont mess with it unless you know what you are doing. mine came 2 teeth off by accident and wouldnt pass smog.

[Jackal1337]

I followed what the service manual said to do, and I don't remember them saying anything about having the crank off by one tooth. Only place I heard of it was online guides.

[ChargerX3]

unless you are a real performance guru then dont mess with the timing. all mine are dead on now. maybe later ill experiment with timing and meth injection and a piggyback system.

[Jackal1337]

Well I am going to school to be a mechanic and I happen to work at a nice shop...pretty sure I can handle it. I've only been researching it for a year or so before I messed with it. It's not rocket science.

So does anyone know of the symptoms your car would have if timing was off by one tooth????????

[Jackal1337]

bump bump

[DBLerman]

The only reason for rotating the crank 1 tooth CCW is to make belt installation easier:
a) either you rotate the crank 1 tooth clockwise after the belt is on to take up the slack
b) the crank sprocket will rotate clockwise on its own when you tension the tensioner.

If you didn't rotate the sprocket forward yourself, or it didn't rotate forward when you tensioned it, then you did something wrong. When everything is on and tensioned properly, every mark should line up, if not go back and redo it until it does. If your timing is off your car will probably run poorly.

[phantomrt]

It won't run right. Compression will be lower. Possible backfires, etc.

After it is installed with timing marks right on, the crankshaft should be turned 1 tooth clockwise to eliminate the slack in the belt between the crankshaft, cam sprockets, water pump, and cam sprockets again. This is the point where the tensioner is "pre-tensioned" before pulling the grenade pin on the viscous tensioner. Then spin the engine two full revolutions and double check the timing marks. The viscious (hydraulic) tensioner isn't intended to take up slack--its just to tension it only.

There's no reason to set the cam timing "off by one tooth".

[Deigea]

I read it in the manual, but didn't see it on any guides. When I recently did my timing belt, I didn't move the crank pulley back 1 tooth, but I found it incredibly hard after guiding the timing belt on all of the cams to get it to evenly match up on the crank pulley. I ended up having to turn the last pulley slightly to get the timing belt some slack to get it to align properly (and that was a bitch still). That is my best guess as to why they would tell you to move it back some.

[Jackal1337]

I would guess it's to help installation then, cause all my timing marks lined up perfectly and it runs like a champ....so I guess it's not necessary to set it off by one, as far as I can tell.