Leon Speed

From your picture you can sort of see the cam gear is one tooth of since the bolt holes in the spider gear are all the way to the left of the adjustment window. If they are in the middle of the window and the groove in the front is 3.5 teeth from the notch in the back plate, it is dead on ~ only some fine tuning/timing needed.



Yes it can be frustrating. It is a play of timing, tension and crank rotation. In little steps until timing and tension are perfect.

syoo8

Is it possible at this point to use the starter motor (with relay IV disconnected) to crank the engine? I woke up with my arms sore from all of the clockwise cranking of the crank bolt!

Avar928

Think of it as a workout! I felt ripped cranking that engine by hand so many times.

Leon Speed

If you are sure the cam timing is about correct, belt is tensioned to spec and crank has been rotated at least two times, no funny sounds or obstructions are felt, cams are torqued, crank is torqued, fly wheel lock is removed, fuel pump relay and fuse plus EZK relay removed, then yes, it is ok to spin the engine with the starter. Do a couple of bumps, hit the starter and let go quickly. First, and this comes probably naturally, take afew deep breaths to calm your heart beat and send a little prayer to the Porsche gods. Worked for me!

Avar928

I paced my garage back and forth for 5 minutes while fluctuating between states of self assurance and doubt before starting the engine on mine.

Hilton

If you're setting cam timing, the above bold part is the wrong way round - what you should be doing is putting the needle in the hole for the cam timing you want. Then you adjust the cam gear until the needle is in the deepest part of the groove. For 99% of users, you just stick the pin through the 0 degrees hole on the 5-8 side, and 2 degree advance side on the 1-4 side (1 degree adv. with a "gates racing" belt), and adjust the cam gear to center on the V notch.

If you find yourself at the end of the cam gear's adjustment range on the bolts and its still not there, you're a tooth off.

Leon's comment about eyeballing the position of the cam gear on the spider is spot on in my experience - I can usually get within 2 degrees of correct just by centering the bolts in the cam gear slots.

depami

You have noted several times that the spark plugs have not been removed.

Why not just take them out for easier turning by hand?

Avar928

It's more work to remove the spark plugs unless you have the plenums already off. Since you're this close may as well just keep at it then have more parts laying around.

What Hilton said, thread the needle in the desired timing hole then when you turn the gear to adjust make sure it lands in the middle of the notch on the plate. Then you check at TDC after a full turn that's it's proper.

jcorenman

Good point about the plenums. Longer ratchet handle helps, also.

So Scott, what's happening? No pressure, but the clock is ticking ...

Cheers, Jim

Avar928

You're almost done. If you can get the driver side at 0 then -1 on the passenger isn't bad. You will be checking it and probably re-adjusting after your honey moon trip anyways so there's no rush to get it exactly on the dot right now.

Once timing is set and the belt is fully tensioned and tensioner full of oil, literally it should take you an hour to put it all back together. Re-assembly is super quick, stuff literally just flies back on. Make sure the harmonic balancer is fully seated so that there's enough lip on the crankshaft so that the accessory belt pulley can also be fully seated on it. One of the locals around here didn't have his fully seated and the lip on the crankshaft was very small so that the AB pulley was wobbly and ended up getting damaged badly. The only hard part is getting the alternator back on and threading that 17mm bolt and putting the fan back on because there's very little slack between the airpump, fan, and AB pulley.

Don't go too fast or you might end up stripping something before it's fully torqued down. I'm going to say you're a day away from finishing.

syoo8

Hello everyone.

I spent all afternoon and evening in the garage.

These things look very simple on the instruction manual, but they take longer than you want.

1) Filling the tensioner with oil. I used an oil can, pushing the nozzle into the tensioner (taking out the bleeder bolts for both inlet and outlet.) It took a while. I was expecting oil to gently pour out of the outlet in 30 seconds. Instead, oil poured out of the inlet. I had to keep trying- finally, after five minutes, oil started dripping out of the outlet. Buttoned up both sides.

2) Center timing belt cover. I very carefully used JB Weld and some aluminum mesh to glue together a chipped piece in the bottom left hand corner of the center timing belt cover. It betrayed me upon installation. I guess I will use some duct tape to cover the hole. Crap.

3) The passenger side rotor and timing belt cover went on just fine. Five minutes- easy.

4) The driver's side rotor would not go on. The bolts could not thread onto the three-pronged hub. How could this be? I just had three allen bolts threaded into the three-pronged hub when I used the PK32V'r tool, unless... UNLESS THE SPROCKET SLIPPED WHEN I REMOVED THE PK32V'r TOOL. RATS! Five minutes turned into > 1 hour, re-timing the driver's side cam sprocket.

5) My cheap HDX Work Light died. No light in the garage. Drive to Wal-Mart with Alice, and then to the ice cream shop, then home. That ended up taking over an hour (but it was fun.)

6) I had to change the power steering hoses. I pulled off too many bolts, and the alternator was disconnected as well. Cleaning the power steering pump with a brush took an hour. Then, I decided to clean the ATF fluid that spilled from the banjo bolt when I disconnected it. (I had a catch pan ready but the ATF fluid traveled down my wrench.)

7) Now, I had to reinstall the alternator. There is a long M10 bolt that threads through the alternator in two places, and through the power steering pump "cassette." I was warned that removing the alternator was a PITA, but luckily I experienced it first hand. I finally got it on by lying down on my back and using my knees (the alternator is very heavy for someone like me.) Aligning the holes was very enjoyable, indeed. About an hour there.

On the bright side, the PK32V'r read 0 on the driver's side and 2 degrees retard on the passenger side. Woohoo!

Avar928

Good job. Pretty much almost done. Once you got the compressor and air pump on, it's all just belts and hoses from then on out.

Not sure what the Pirtle guide says but I didn't install the fan until last. You can thread all the belts and install the pulley and there's just enough slack to get the fan on the air pump belt. You'll just have to fight the tension a little to get the fan to line up with the bolt holes on the water pump and block.

I used a screw driver in one of the top two bolt holes to leverage the fan then got one of the bolts on to keep it in place. Bolted the other hole then again used a small screw driver on the triangle 3 to line them up and got a bolt in on one before finishing the other two. Not bad once you get one bolt in.

Leon Speed

Scott, the only way the spider gear can 'slip' is when the cam gear isn't torqued to spec. Are you sure they are now and that the ring that comes with the bumpstick has been removed?

syoo8

Hi Aryan- thanks for your message. Yes, the "spider gear" bolt (or cam sprocket) was not torqued at all. I was removing the bolt to remove the PKBumpStick ring that needed to be removed.

jcorenman

And you removed the small washer (under the big hex washer) that allows the cam gear to be adjusted, right?
(It's part of the 32v'r kit, and not part of the normal assembly).

There are two different things that lock the cams and the gears together: The center bolt (torqued to 48#), and the three allen-head screws that secure the rotors (or the 32v'r rings) to the "spiders", which also lock the cam gears in the process.

The trick is to always have either the center-bolt tightened, OR the three allen-screws, or both-- but never "neither". Don't ever loosen the center bolt if the three allen's are loose, or vice-versa. Cams are frisky and like to play.

Cheers, Jim