corvette95

I know NOTHING of imports ONLY Corvettes. I had to repair a head and head gasket on my 05 Sentra 1.8 . I marked the cams and the cam gears before I took them off. Installed them as I took them off, Didnt think I turn the engine, moved it slightly when breaking cam gears loose. Machine shop went through the head and pressure tested. I reinstalled dot to dot and cams oriented as removed. Yadda Yadda Yadda, back together....nope, engine in a bind. I knew this was gonna be my trouble spot. How do I realign camshafts then the cam gears?

thedudeman321

From the diagram it seems like you need to match the coloured links in the chain to the alignment notches on the cams and crank. Blue for cams, yellow for crank.

I've never seen a system like that, but that's what the diagram is telling me.

ex-x-fire

Does the engine have variable valve timing like a Honda V-tech?

corvette95

no. cant use the colored link because the chain must have came off the crank because I marked the timing before I took it off. I guess I am going to have to start from scratch and take crank cover off

thedudeman321

Why is that relevant?

and FYI...VTEC has nothing to do with valve timing.

thedudeman321

By the look of the diagram, correct me if I'm wrong, there's 3 coloured links, two blue one yellow.

Those all need to be aligned with their respective markings. Are you saying there's only one? If it has all three...the only way I see to get it right is to take the crank cover back off and align all three by the coloured links.

There's no marks on the cams or crank that point to a solid reference point like most other engines. For instance, Honda's have a mark on each cam gear, and a mark on the crank for TDC. You set the crank to TDC and set the two marks on the cams so that they face each other exactly. Without marks like that, the links seem to be the only way.

ex-x-fire

Its relevant because you have to rephase the cam & gear (if it has vvt). I don't know what set up that nissan has. I know ford zetec engines 2.0, you have to rephase the cams. But those don't have dowel pins. Honda vtec controls both valve timing & lift. Look it up.
Hey corvette95, did you remove the camshafts when set it to the machine shop? If not, I've seen them loosen the cam bearing caps & not tighten them back up. They do this because atlease a couple valves will be open & they can't machine the head with out hitting those open valves. With those loose, the engine may bind when turning it over.

corvette95

I kept the camshafts at home. They resurfaced the head and pressure tested it. If you know, what lb torque should be on the camshaft retainers and camshaft gear? I went with 35 and 65

thedudeman321

All the Honda's I've worked on (normal VTEC, never been inside an i-VTEC) have keys on the cams and cam gears. No messing things up to be done there.

And I wouldn't say that VTEC has anything to do with valve/cam timing until i-VTEC came out. But you didn't mention i-VTEC, just normal VTEC, which does nothing more than lock a third rocker arm into place for more lift. IIRC, the base circle of the third lobe is still the same.

i-VTEC is the only one that can actively adjust cam/valve timing.

corvette95

Nope this one ( 1.8) DOES have the variable timing. The aftermarket service manual I was using made no mention of having to take the intake cam sprocket off at full advance. I found that out the hard way. Now its off, got a factory manual telling me that I should have done x and y , timing chain has been moved. I set crankshaft key at 12 oclock per the manual, set the intake and exhaust cams and sprockets per manual, put back together and it would not start. Seems 180 out, pulled it all back apart (this was before I knew about timing advance btw ) and the cams were 180 out, I guess it has to do with revolutions per crank and cam and that I had a 50/50 shot at it . Now gotta put it all back together again, still not sure how to absolutely verify correct timing and dont know how to put intake advance sprocket in advance mode now that its on set on full retard. Hope theres a Nissan guy here!

GregC6

try www.b15sentra.net

corvette95

thanks , I will look