Timing and misfire 1988 gti on carbs

Thanks Mk1gls,

I'm not happy with the resistance I felt so I'll have a look for more dots etc.

 there are more marks/colours on the inside of the pulley.
It's a 1988 car so head should be 1988 as far as I know? I'll take the cam cover off tomorrow and have another look at everything.

Determined to get this sorted though, I won't be turning it over until I've trebled checked it all.

The car was sat outside last week when I was doing it the first time and I needed to get it back in the garage

If you remove that plastic shield, you should be able to see better, it looks like it's just held on with the 2 end nuts from the cam cover?

Yes and worth taking the cam cover off to check and you are doing the right thing not starting it and turning the engine over by hand.

Morning,

Sorry 1 more daft question that I've thought about when I woke up. 

Am I correct in thinking the cam and crank are to be set to TDC and it is only the dizzy that is set to 6degree before TDC off the crank marks?

I just want to get this right

Thanks 

Mike

I had a bit of time before work so I've whipped the cam cover and cambelt plastic off and checked the valve positions.

The cam was at least 180 degrees out.

Found a line on the back of the cam pulley which tallies with the cam lobe to pot 1 pointing skywards

Does this look right now

The cam goes half the speed of the crank. So for TDC on no.1 cylinder there is a "valves closed" position for the cam at No.1 and another position, with valves open.

I think the cam gear being on backwards possibility is a bit of a red herring, since its not possible on this engine.

Thanks Paul,

The more I looked at the pulley I realised that, it's offset to one side isn't it.

Just need to put it back together now and see if it has made a difference

Well, that was a total flop.

Set everything perfectly but the car absolutely would not fire, had to retard the timing about 15 degrees just to allow it to start.

Mechanically everything was as it should have been this time around.

Now to strip the bike carbs install and look at the basics of that to make sure it is all there and then it's off to a specialist tuners.

Make sure it has spark to all 4 cylinders; and that the timing is advancing mechanically and with vacuum.

Its normally "ignition" rather than "fuel", but having said that, on bike carbs (or with K-Jet), its normally fuel!!

The dizzy fitted doesn't have vacuum advance, there are two bare wires coming off the bike carbs that I need to investigate because I've got a feeling they should be connected to something.

If someone has just taken a wild stab in the dark with the mech-only ignition, that's never going to help either - but it will still run okay. Normally popping and backfiring either through exhaust or inlet is due to a gross ignition timing error, but that should be easy to resolve.

Its a bit like a broken clock, its going to be the correct time twice a day…..

So you could get it to start and idle lovely….just no power at the top end (for example).

timing marks