protejay

Over the past WEEK!! i have been installing the adjustable cam gears. Here's a run-down of what i did (it will help jog my memory too ):

Thought i might be able to change them out with *minimal* effort(and NOT have to release the tension on the belt)...haha. Took off the alt belt, ps/ac belt(a pain to get to the bolts), and the valve cover and top timing belt cover.

Rotated the crank CLOCKWISE to get to TDC....the I and E indexes on the cam gears point straight up and match the marks on the seal plate.
I marked the timing belt where the I and E indexes contacted the belt; used a permanent marker.
Then i unbolted the exhaust gear and with some effort 'pulled' it off...that's when the intake gear/cam jumped forward! But actually found out later that's a normal occurence...
.....after some attempts at putting the new gear on w/the belt, i decided to go ahead and take off the intake gear. Got the exhaust gear on and TRIED frustratingly to put on the intake gear w/the belt at the SAME time...couldn't do it So, then i bolted the new intake gear on and tried to fit the belt over BOTH new gears. Nogo - besides the gears not wanting to stay 'vertical'; there was just too much tension in the belt.

At this point i simply HAD to get at the timing belt tensioner and soooo....
needed to take off the waterpump pulley, but since i had already taken off the alt belt; i had no leverage to break the 3 bolts loose. Without thinking i took the belt and from below wrapped it tightly around the waterpump pulley and the crank pulley and began to turn one of the bolts....argh!! wn: the crank MOVED! NOT what i wanted to have happen as i NOW had to retime the crank.
So i slapped the alt belt back on PROPERLY and was able to break 2 of the waterpump pulley's bolts loose; but guess what - the 3rd bolt ended up rounding offffffffff. i tried and tried to break it...THOUGHT i was breaking it when actually i was just rounding off the head more
After a another day or so i got some Vise-Grips which took care of it. OK now take off the middle belt cover....Now i could loosen the tensioner bolt and fully extend the tensioner itself; thus freeing the t-belt.
With a flashlight i finally found the 'cut' in the t-belt gear and got it aligned with the mark on the oil pump - back to TDC.
With the timing belt loose now it was EZ to get it on the gears; the problem was KEEPING the gears/cams aligned as you threaded the t-belt on.
After more meaningless effort, this is what i did: i attached a weight to a wrench with a coat hanger to keep the exhaust cam from moving. Then i used another wrench to postion the intake cam. i started the t-belt onto it; then i grabbed my socket wrench and set it on the gear bolt to hold it in place....at last SUCCESS! i released
the tension bolt and turned the crank 2 times to make sure everything was still lined up.

So that's where i'm at; will hopefully have it all back together tomorrow....

protejay

I SERIOUSLY thought about asking for 2 more hands : but just didn't get around to it.
I had a heavy enuff weight hanging over the bumper that easily prevented the exhaust cam from moving once it was positioned. With that set, it just took some juggling to position AND hold the intake gear; and then slide on the t-belt.

The tough thing about all of this has been:
1) you can read all you want and look at pics, but untill you ACTUALLY do it, its hard to know what to expect.
2) there is hardly NO room to work with....man o man i was DREAMING of the room available to do this on a RWD Miata... well not really
3) mainly because of #2 its just an akward time-consuming job...it really isn't HARD technically, just more like... frustrating.

But the experience has been great! I will most likely do my own t-belt next time because of doing this....
....and also because the idiot mechanics that have replaced my t-belt's before overtightened the middle timing belt cover; thus cracking and bending it; and also did not replace the lower 2 seal plate bolts wn:

protejay

Spent a good bit of time today rechecking and finishing up everything.
When i finally fired it up...there was a horrible grinding/scraping noise!?!
I killed it, took a look, but didn't really see anything....tried again and it was still there; watched everything as it was running and besides some unexpected wobble in the new gears...everything looked fine???
I moved it outside and took a closer look at it. There were some small metal shavings scattered about....then i noticed the problem: the exhaust gear was *barely* contacting a ridge on the seal plate at the bottom part of the gear. After some thought i figured the best thing would be to see if i could repostion the seal plate UPWARDS to prevent the contact.
Thank goodness UR cam gear's have the holes in just the right places so as to get to the seal plate bolts!!!! Otherwise i would have had to remove the gears (not again!!)
So i just rotated the crank to align the holes to get at each of the 4 bolts. Happy to say it worked! Just enough freeplay to move it up.
Took the car for a drive and so far so good....

Nice thing about adjustable gears too is if you DON'T get the OEM timing just right, you DO have an EZ alternative

protejay

I definitely want to get it on the dyno for some tuning; i was hoping to do it 2 mondays from now. If i don't have the header by then, though, i may wait....i'd really like to see the results from having the header and the RX7 VAF on(which i hope to do this weekend)

Right now i have the intake cam advanced 2 degrees and it *seems* to be pulling a little stronger in the lower rpms; but i haven't been able to spend much time driving/playing with it yet.....

A side note....i think i remember seeing the intake cam specs on Randy's site, but does anyone know the exhaust specs???

protejay

i haven't gotten the other mods done yet....so dyno time looks to be a few weeks off.

been very busy (sorry i didn't make it to the autox Darryl ) ....actually i'll be leaving on a cross-country trip in a few hours; so i *may* get the car tuned at the same dyno in the Atlanta area that RandyS uses; they've got plenty xperience with the BP.

sooo.... if you see a white california Pro ZOOMING through AZ, NM, TX, etc... it may be me!
gonna be traveling the 10 and 20.

bty, the cam gears have no wobble in them. it was just an illusion due to the anti-seize compound that i messily smeared underneath the cam bolt washer's.....made it 'look like' the gears had a wobble.