I think I screwed up a timing belt change

[Eljosh]

So everything was going to good, had it all back together, and went to start it, and it all raddley, and clanky coming from the engine. Is there a way to save it or at least check without taking the head off? thanks guys

[FLG]

Fix your mistake, try to start it again, cross fingers.

Chances are you bent some valves, but you never know.

[mbonanni]

Check to see if your harmonic balancer is rubbing your timing cover. Mine was and cause some noises.

If not, goodluck man. I had to do a hg twice essentially because of my own mistake.

[Eljosh]

OK, I'll redo it all tomorrow, is there a chance I messed up a piston or would it just be valves?

[mbonanni]

If the valves hit ti pistons then there is a possibility, but depends. I would just double chedk it all.

[FLG]

Well chances are since it was idle speed you probably damaged the valves, the pistons might have a few nicks but nothing horrible, they can take quite a beating.

Fix the timing, start it up (you dont need to put it ALL back together, car will run fine for a few minutes with no WP or other belts hooked up) if she runs good you got lucky, if not well time to pop the head off.

[Eljosh]

Ok, cool thanks. I think it as coming from one of the back piston. Like 5 or 6. Also if I did trash some stuff, can you do a stroker from a 2.5, or if I have to just rebuild the head, what kind of performance should I look at like bigger valves, with a cam? Just to look at all my options.

[FLG]

If your going to need a head rebuild just do it stock, your going to waste money trying to get any noticeable amount of hp out of a beat engine. Also going too large on valves can cause loss of velocity and actually hurt performance, especially on a stock engine. Same goes for cams, your going to be throwing money away.

Changing to a bigger cam will generally need you to check piston to valve clearance, also to really take advantage of the new profile youll need a custom tune on the ECU. In the end youll have spent a lot of cash for a small gain.

[Eljosh]

Gotcha, I'll just hold off on the performance stuff until later. How much does the machining for a head usually cost? And should I do all the valves or just bent ones? and I was looking at ireland engineering and they got stainless steel stock valves for pretty cheap, are those worse than the normal ones?

[SmokeE30]

use a stock 885 head and get it freshened up stock stuff is plenty good

[Eljosh]

Ok, guys I got a little update on my situation, I think I managed to get it back in time and nothing is hitting now. But there is alot of noise coming from the valve cover, like rattles kinda, basically I'm pretty sure I broke it. But I have two options, I can just rebuild the head I got for the engine I got, I'm guessing like 800ish to do that, or since I wanted to do a 5 swap, I found an engine with lower miles than mine, and has a 5 speed, with clutch, master and slave cylinders and all the stuff for a swap, other than a driveshaft, trans support, and pedals. I'm thinking more of the engine and transmission swap, since it knocks two thinks out at once. Oh and I can get the engine and trans for 500ish. What do you guys think?

[PNWDan]

Ok, guys I got a little update on my situation, I think I managed to get it back in time and nothing is hitting now. But there is alot of noise coming from the valve cover, like rattles kinda, basically I'm pretty sure I broke it. But I have two options, I can just rebuild the head I got for the engine I got, I'm guessing like 800ish to do that, or since I wanted to do a 5 swap, I found an engine with lower miles than mine, and has a 5 speed, with clutch, master and slave cylinders and all the stuff for a swap, other than a driveshaft, trans support, and pedals. I'm thinking more of the engine and transmission swap, since it knocks two thinks out at once. Oh and I can get the engine and trans for 500ish. What do you guys think?

Remove valve cover and see what's up before making any decisions

[Eljosh]

Ok, I took it off be redoing the timing belt. But I will defiantly check it out before I pick to do anything.

[e30trooper]

Ok, I took it off be redoing the timing belt. But I will defiantly check it out before I pick to do anything.

In english? Take the valve cover off and take a good pic. Post it. Take the timing belt cover off and put the crank at TDC. See if the Cam TDC is off.