I have a 4age frankenstein and its driving me crazy

mr2mk1hero
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Re: I have a 4age frankenstein and its driving me crazy

Postby mr2mk1hero » Wed Dec 21, 2016 10:11 am

So I played around with it some more.

Injectors are 2 ohm, resistor box in place. I am keeping it there obviously.
Distributor is 4 wire. Don't know if the ecu wants 3 or 4 wire.

I also re-did my timing belt. Here's a weird thing that happens. I align the cam and crank marks to tdc positions, make sure everything is tight on non-tensioning side, push the tensioner pulley to the right and tighten it. Make a full revolution and as soon as I do the crank pulley does not align to zero anymore, it is stupidly close, but it goes like a mm or two off its positions, towards the 5 degrees mark. I did it a few times and it happens every time. Am I doing something wrong? I tension the non-tensioning side first, starting from exhaust pulley, then attach the belt to the intake pulley and then tighten with the tensioner pulley.

Also there's a sound when I rotate the engine by hand when I get close to tdc, cant figure out where the sound is coming from sounds like alternator or the tensioner pulley. Any ideas what it could be? Cant describe the sound, sounds mechanical I guess, but not like metal touching metal or anything, different.

I made new timing marks and actually managed to time it this time and it its 16-17 outside of diagnostic mode. On cam pulleys it looks like 1 tooth, maybe a tiny bit less.

Drove the car again. Idle is still stupid-ish, there are pulses of rough running and the occasional misfire, 2 and 8 flashes of course still there after resetting faults. Cars feels pretty fast and pretty good. But I tought it wasn't too bad when it ran with the skipped tooth belt....so my ideas of what is running good and fast are stupid. Need to "race" it again against my suzuki dd as a reference point.

I also ordred a used afm and a used aw11 distributor with the number my ecu needs according to toyodiy, also ordered a rebuild kit for it. Can't wait for it to arrive. Worst case scenario I get a spare, nothing bad about having spare parts for cars like this I guess.
Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwosUn ... xtqkNJ3Fbg
Check out my blog: http://www.driving4answers.com/
Heaps of 4A-GE and MR2 mk1 aw11 content on both.

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jondee86
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Re: I have a 4age frankenstein and its driving me crazy

Postby jondee86 » Wed Dec 21, 2016 12:40 pm

mr2mk1hero wrote:I also re-did my timing belt. Here's a weird thing that happens. I align the cam and
crank marks to tdc positions, make sure everything is tight on non-tensioning side,
push the tensioner pulley to the right and tighten it. Make a full revolution and as
soon as I do the crank pulley does not align to zero anymore, it is stupidly close, but
it goes like a mm or two off its positions, towards the 5 degrees mark. I did it a few
times and it happens every time. Am I doing something wrong? I tension the
non-tensioning side first, starting from exhaust pulley, then attach the belt to the
intake pulley and then tighten with the tensioner pulley.

When the head and/or block are machined to restore flatness, the centre distance
between the camshafts and the crankshaft is reduced. The pitch of the cambelt is
fixed, so the end result is that the camshaft timing becomes slightly retarded. If you
use the cam timing marks as your reference, the crank mark will be advanced a little
towards the plus 5 deg mark. You can zero out the difference with vernier pulleys.

Cheers... jondee86
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.

mr2mk1hero
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Re: I have a 4age frankenstein and its driving me crazy

Postby mr2mk1hero » Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:15 pm

That's good news, glad I bought adjustable ones :)

Let me try to wrap my head around this, to compensate for the slight retardation I get at the crank I should adjust the cam pulleys anti-clockwise to advance it?

Thank you jondee86 for all your responses, you are really helping me out here!
Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwosUn ... xtqkNJ3Fbg
Check out my blog: http://www.driving4answers.com/
Heaps of 4A-GE and MR2 mk1 aw11 content on both.

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jondee86
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Re: I have a 4age frankenstein and its driving me crazy

Postby jondee86 » Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:45 pm

Yes, the rim of the pulley moves anti-clockwise (cam moves clockwise) by as much
as it takes to have all the timing marks line up after you do two forward revolutions
of the crank. It won't take much as two deg at the crank is only one deg at the cam :)

Cheers... jondee86
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.

Ultimx
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Re: I have a 4age frankenstein and its driving me crazy

Postby Ultimx » Sun Dec 25, 2016 10:36 pm

I had a similar issue with it running like crap with only the distributor in one position. Your cam timing is indeed off by 1 tooth. Also, my ae86 distributor and ae92 one look the same but wiring is a little different. 92 does fit in the head but won't plug in correctly. I can almos guarantee that the used mr2 distributor will fix the problem. Does the 92 dist. Have screw holes for the factory heat shield? I also had my previous engine run with the cams off 180. I fixed that problem and then the car ran well for a bit then took a crap. Hope this helps

mr2mk1hero
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Re: I have a 4age frankenstein and its driving me crazy

Postby mr2mk1hero » Tue Jan 10, 2017 3:13 am

A litle update on the distributors.

I ordered one from the U.K. from Neil Jones and here's what I got:
Image

Totally incompatible with mine right? If my research is right this is a map dizzy and has just one connector that doesn't fit any of mine.

Here is my dizzy and connectors:
Image
Image

The horrible wiring job on mine tells me this is definitely a rolla distributor because the corolla connectors would not fit mine, so someone botched it up like this. I am going to re-wire this nicely, maybe this was creating issues too.

Anyone need a MAP dizzy? I'll sell it for cheap. Since I assume I can't get this one to work with my engine?
I also ordered a rebuild kit for this MAP dizzy, it will work with mine right? I hope that isn't a miss too.

I managed to get my car to run pretty well so I am pretty happy and not worried by this being the wrong dizzy, wished it was right, but hey.... Weather here has been horrible....-20 degrees Celsius, snow and ice so can't do proper test drives with different adjustment of the cam pulleys. I got the car to run nicely but I think there's more power there, right now it feels like it peaks a bit too early. Can't wait for weather to get better.
Check out my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwosUn ... xtqkNJ3Fbg
Check out my blog: http://www.driving4answers.com/
Heaps of 4A-GE and MR2 mk1 aw11 content on both.