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Made a mistake while doing timing belt, need to figure out cam orientation
I am in the middle of my build (the engine is out of the car). While doing my timing belt I made sure to mark the old belt and cam gears in order to get the new belt oriented correctly. I made my mistake when I took the cam gears off to replace the cam seals. I did not realize there were 2 possible orientations for each cam gear (see picture). Since I did not pay attention to how the gears were on the cams, my marks are now meaningless and I have no clue what to do from here. I tried searching the miata forums and did not come up with anything.
Does anyone know how to get the gears back on correctly?
you cam GEARS are lined up, but are the cams themselves properly aligned within the gears? The little nub should be slotted in the "I" on the intake side, and the "E" on the exhaust side. Please confirm your crank is positioned correctly with respect to the cam gears as well.
Yep you got it...... 19 teeth between the strait up marks on the cams. Any guide to timing belt swaps would walk you through this without the need to mark anything.
That's correct. It should also cause the "E" on the intake gear to point toward the raised line on the backplate. Same for the "I" on the exhaust gear.