Manager Forum

I have a 2001 eclipse with 2.4 sohc engine. brought in with no start. Has new timing belt and new cam sensor. i check and has no compression on a few cylinders. So I remove cylinder head have bent valves replace, head milled ( I backed the head bolts out with 3/8 ratchet with no problem or strain). I put cyl head back on with new head bolts and proper torque procedure, install timing belt all gears in time go to start the engine and it starts to kick back like it is out of time while busting the nose off of new starter the customer just had put on before bringing to me. I go and put another starter on and still no start and it drags and kicks back like it is out of time. According to all information that I have found it seems to be in correct time. Used the ole screwdriver in cyl #1 and turned it by hand everything looks right. Any suggestions???

After consulting with the DIY customer, I found that after removing the crank gear and reluctor (tone) wheel and reinstalling the customer had damaged the reluctor just enough to throw off the signal. Taking no more chances and wasting no more time, I replaced the reluctor plate and the crank sensor.
Fired right up like it should and purred like a kitty.
It looks like when the DIY customers fail at a repair they are just to ashammed to let the tech know all that they #*$! up. It would make the job alittle easier to bare. Thanks to all.

O.K., it seems it was brought to your shop after a grenade engine was "worked" on. We'll have to assume it was running well prior to the belt snapping and bending valves. Someone replace the belt and tried various other things to get it running. We have to deal with the "other" things. I would take a real close look at the firing order and distributer placement. It would be an educated guess that it's been messed with. I've found firing orders that #4 was used as #1 and distributer was moved or taken out and reset. That's what it sounds like at this time. If I were to find TDC at this point I would only rely on piston and cam position. Relying on piston and rotor position isn't a viable option in this situation. I would set #1 piston, make sure valves are closed, timing mark is on zero and then set the distributer.
I get a lot more money when I get these jobs in my shop because of all the added work resolving issues that were done to "fix" the original issue. Make sure plugs are correct and gapped properly, etc. Once you get it running you own it. Crank case probably has enough fuel in it from blow by that once it starts if there are weak guides it may set off an explosion that will leave you wondering "what just happened" and the exhaust may be full of fumes to really overheat the converter. Good Luck.

That would be the right track for the dist. type but this is coil over plug. With the piston at TDC the cam is closed and all marks are dead on.

My bad, I looked it up in all data and it showed a distributer. Let me put some thought into this. The pcm may have been spiked by some one shot gunning. The timing seems to be getting kicked way ahead. With coil over is there a possibility of a vvt issue

What about crank sensor. Have had them cause problems after a timing belt explosion.

Let's not forget the harness recall or tsb on the crank sensors. Looking at the post and bringing up the car again I see it's a dual coil over. I'm wondering if the harness issue is causing a multiple misfire issue or for some reason the knock sensor is involved somehow. I've seen a few gasket leaks between #'s 2 and 3 cylinder causing intermittent lock up. Maybe a leak down will assist here or what I usually do is put a compression tester on one of the cylinders and pressurize the other. If you get a reading the head is either warped or the gasket is junk. Again I feel that this revolves around something the prior shop did. I've seen some issues that I'm even shocked at. Some intentional some not. Looking at the diagrams I would think it's almost physically impossible to mess with the firing order but I've seen the impossible done before. Check ground points and look for hanging wires. There was one vehicle that two sensors close to each other would accept the harness connector. I don't remember what vehicle it was but they were beside and under the throttle nose piece. I'll post more as it filters through the pudding that was once called Grey Matter.

Steve, I have seen some Honda's that the TPS and MAP were the same connector and right next to each other, this might be the one you are thinking of....