Timing Belt Question?

Question

What symptoms will there be if:

timing belt is off by one tooth?

if its advanced or retarded by one tooth?

for example a VG30E Nissan Engine..

Answer 1

If it's one tooth off, the car would run awful, if at all, just because of how far out of spec that would be. 1-2 degrees is fine. But 1 tooth off could be 10 degrees or more, which will really cause problems. Some engines it could cause catastrophic failure on startup.

Answer 2

It will be retarded if the belt slips, the valves will open one or more belt notches late.

Answer 3

The CEL will come on and you will get a code for the cam sensor P0340 if I remember right. The other comments are also helpful. A factory scan tool can check if the crankshaft and camshaft sensors are in sync with each other if you need more help.

Answer 4

In general, one tooth out on a timing belt represents about 20 degrees at the crank. If you happened to install the belt such that the cam was advanced one tooth you would get a noticeable reduction in power at higher rpm. If you you installed it so the cam was retarded one tooth, a reduction in power at low rpm would result.

The VG30 has 2 overhead cams so if the belt jumped any combination of the above could occur but in my experience, if the timing belt jumps, it also very quickly tears teeth off and kills the engine.