Hi everyone,

I am trying to change the timing belt on my 2000 1.4 civic auto. The marks on the camshaft and crankshaft appear to match up but when I checked the position of the rotor arm in relation to the position of the contact on the dist cap the brass electrode on the rotor arm as all but passed the cap no 1 terminal position, the trailing edge of the contact is about in-line with the no 1 terminal. Does anyone know if this is right? I would appreciate any help/info. Thanks, Paj.

 

That is normal. The spark always fires sometime before TDC. Thus if you set the engine to TDC the rotor will be almost past the contact.

After changing timing belt, always check / adjust spark timing with a timing light. Put the test jumper in to set the ECU in test mode.

 

^ if you dont jump the service harness, no amount of advancing or retarding the dizzy will have any effect on the cars timing. jumping the service plug is seriously easy, it can be done with some wire, or even a paperclip. i used the latter rather than the former. buy or rent a timing light. dont go off of idle quality. this isnt something you want to eyeball. overall, its quite simple. i have faith in ya.

 

Hi again guys,
Finally put it all back together (today) and it started straight away, I haven't checked the timing with the timing light yet but it seems to run pretty much ok but when coming to a stop the revs dip momentarily before rising back to 750 rpm. Does this sound like something that adjusting the dizzy would sort out? I still have to find the service connector, also I am pretty sure it has a obd 2 connector---will it still be the same procedure for adjusting the dizzy? Any knowledge / advice / comments eagerly awaited.

Cheers, Paj.