8v ex engine firing order not right.

Evening chaps, I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while now, but as Ive just changed my timing belt it reminded me.

I got my 89 clipper around 5 years ago, it has the ex motor fitted with a Weber carb, the head has been off at some point as its much cleaner than the block. On the very first service, and whilst changing the ht leads I noticed that the firing order was wrong.

instead of 1342 from the lead nearest the engine and going clockwise, my firing order is 4213, it will only run like this but runs very well.

whilst changing the belt I thought I’d double check all the marks at tdc, so this is what I did.

Made sure the dot on the flywheel visible through the inspection hole in the gear box lined up with the arrow on the housing.
The rotor arm was pointing towards the engine and lined up with the little mark on the dizzy housing.
The arrow on the bottom timing cover lines up with the notch on the water pump pulley.

mine has the plastic timing belt covers, so has the plastic bit the top cover clips on to, it has the ‘ot’ marks on it, surprisingly though, the cam sprocket doesn’t have any marks except for a dot on the outside that doesn’t line up with anything, not sure why this is.

So apart from the missing marks on the cam sprocket, it all looked good, the cam lobes were exactly where they should be on no1 at tdc.

To change the belt I also used a paint pen and marked the belt and sprockets, then transferred the timing marks to the new belt, after changing the belt everything lined up just as before with no issues.

after putting it all back together it runs just as before, just need to loosen the belt a little.

I tried changing the leads to the correct order of 1342 but it doesn’t start and just farts while trying, as soon as I change them back to 4213 all is well.

has anyone any ideas, I’m not to concerned as it runs fine as before, just baffled and would like to figure it out.

thanks for any info

Cheers.


 

Well, I never bothered with the timing marks on pulley's

The Way I timed it was to Put the finger on the tranny to the (O) mark on the flywheel, or the (0) time mark on the Plate on my automatics.

The Dimple on the back of the Cam (89) or below on the 90's you have a O|T mark on the front of the cam that aligns with the Marks on the plastic cover.  

There is still a dimple on the Back side of the cam.  This dimple should be Even with the plane of the valve cover tin on the head not the rebar on the Valve cover. Even on the on the 90's the dimple is at the place of the valve cover tin as well as  the (|) msrk on the Front is in between the O,T stamp on the rear plastic cover.

The rotor is aligned so it is in the middle of the hash stamp on the frame. This set means that the number one cylinder is at the 12:30-1:00 o'clock position  If it isn't then you rotate the intermediate pulley so it is.  That is the number 1 cylinder, for the number 1 plug, and well then it is the 1-3-4-2 in a Clock wise position around the diz for the wires.   If you look at your order of 4213 id is Still using the same firing order that is used, you are just firing on the number 4 cylinder first.  But there are some engines that differ, that you have on your side of the pond that we don't see over here.

If this was the standard you would see that your cam dimple is set and the Valves on the Number one are closed.  

Here is a link to www.cabby-info.com
https://www.cabby-info.com/files/ignition/AdjustingTheTiming.pdf

It sounds to me that your timing is set backwards I suspect that your valves on the cam and the dimple are set a tad off.   If that is off then your Diz has to be set

I have seen that if you get the marks wrong usually when swapping out a diz, as it wasn't positioned correctly when replaced.  But if it is working for you will no ill will, do the Beatles tune. "Let It Be."

Hi Briana

Thanks for the reply, most helpful as usual..

I think I might have figured it out, so the car has been starting and running just fine since the belt change,  but the lack of timing marks on the camshaft pulley has been bugging me. So I nipped in the garage this evening to check it all again.

First I located tdc on the flywheel, this corresponded with the notch on the crank pulley and arrow on the lower plastic cover.

However this time I found a little mark on the inside of the cam sprocket, this lined up with the valve cover, but this time my dizzy rotor was out by 180 degrees, If I understand this right, thats why it's firing on no4 first, then as you say following the normal firing order, plus I'm thinking the reason why I couldn't find a mark on the camshaft sprocket is because it would have been out by the same 180 degrees how I had it set the first time, basically I had the wrong tdc.

It's been like this since I've owned it so guess the dizzy has been out at some point and pu5 back in wrong, but as it runs well with good power I'm reluctant to pull the dizzy and correct it, then have to do the ignition timing.

I'll have to see how much it bugs me over winter..