got my head rebuilt at a shop. all the valve clearances were off, so i fixed that. drove fine for a week. started dying on me for some reason. took off the valve cover and timing belt cover to find a loose cam gear and a timing belt slowly slipping off. i turned the cam gear bolt 3 times and it is snug, but i do not have a torque wrench. if i just tighten it on there with a socket wrench will i be ok for now? if my cam gear was that loose, is my timing going to be out as well? is it normal for a head to be rebuilt, and the cam gear bolt to just not be torqued down??? =/

 

Well, you will know if your timing jumped, I figure it hasn't or else you'll post it. You can remove and tighten with some lock tight on it.

 

It is throwing code 4, tdc sensor. Would that loose cam gear cause this?

 

if jump, you'll definitely know, it'll run like a lawn mower. So does it idle fine, drive fine? or jerking or misfire? if not jump in timing, try out another dizzy.. what else did you do before this happen?

 

I had a shop replace the timing belt and head gasket as well as all the gaskets in the head. I tried two other distributors but code 4 still shows up. I will play with it today and see what happens.

 

got rid of my codes completely, distributor wiring is verified to be good. still having issues.

idle is sort of low. 600-700 RPM range.
won't rev up at all. small tap, nothing. if i hold it at WOT, it will rev up to 1200 or so, and die once i let off the gas.

never had this issue before, not sure where to start. throwing no codes. if i disconnect the TPS, the car shuts off almost instantly.

 

Is it in time? If it will idle with the jumper in place you can put a timing light on and check.

The cam gear should have a pin to keep it in the right place relative to the camshaft.

 

that eases my mind that the cam gear shouldn't have moved.

i put a wooden dowel in #1 spark plug hole to check TDC. seemed alright, when the TDC mark on the cam gear was lined up the dowel was in the right position.

it idles very lowly. even lower with the jumper in place. 500 or less.

checking codes again, getting code 7 TPS. replaced the whole throttle body with a known good one and still the same thing. I had to extend my TPS wires when i did my swap, so I'm thinking I might have a break somewhere? GRN=ground, RED=D11 on ECU, YEL=5.0v
GRN and YEL are correct, and showing 5.0v at ignition.

would a non-functioning TPS make sense?

 

The TPS output wire should go from about 0.4 with throttle closed to about 4.5 volts wide open. Do this test with the key on but engine not running.

If the cam gear has moved on the camshaft (pin sheared or something), the marks on the gear would still be OK but the cam and sparks will be out of time. Thus, test with a timing light to be sure.