Loose timing belt, vvt not working.

[Neil_Ireland]

Hi,

I had my car in getting the timing belt changed, when I got it back I noticed the car had a little more pep to it. At 4.5k rpm there is a nice pickup now where the vvt seems to kick in. It's nothing like a vtec but a change in engine note and slightly more pull.

At first I thought there was something not put back on the induction side of things, the car sounded similar when the airbox lid was not cliped back in properly when I bought it.

I spoke to the mechainc after this and he told me the timing belt was very loose. When he was setting up the timing to remove the old belt he said it looked like the timing was off by 1 notch on one of the cams, can't remember which one he said, maybe it was the inlet cam.

Would the timing being off stop the vvt from working?

Thanks,
Neil.

[Steve]

not sure if it would stop the vvt working but sounds like you might have been off one tooth on the intake cam (causes sluggishness & exaggerates the flat spot around 3kprm?).

[Neil_Ireland]

There wasn't really a flat spot at 3k, was just a flat pull from about 2k to redline, felt a bit dead to be honest.