I recently change the timing belt for a gentleman that had 330,000 kms on his car and had never changed it. The belt looked surprisingly good. Also did a water pump change. When finished, I ran the car it had a p0016 code and was very sluggish. It starts and idles fine. I double checked the timing by pulling number 1 spark plug and inserting a probe to determine when the piston was at tdc. As the probe peaked out the cam sprocket was at the indentation as well. Everything looked good so I ordered a cam sensor and just changed it today. I cleared the code but it returns on startup. Any suggestions would be helpful.Thanks

 

Sounds like you know what you're doing.
Piston at TDC
Valves all closed

P0016 cam and crank correlation??

I would be just going over it again and again to see if I missed something

 

If the belt is one tooth off it will throw that code.
Good advice to recheck your work.

 

Can the belt be off 1 tooth and still start and run well with no valve damage?--- I'll answer that 1 myself. Yes it can but it will certainly throw a code. Not sure how many teeth u could be off without damage and I don't want to find out.

 

Well Fellas today was the day I was gonna figure this out or die tryin. I pulled the top timing cover and when the piston was at tdc my mark was just not quite lined up on the cam. I still figured if I jump the cam sprocket 1 tooth it would be way passed the mark. Previously as soon as I started it after clearing the code it would fire a new code. I loosened the tensioner and jumped it 1 tooth and re tried the mark . To me it seems like its just passed where it should be about the same amount it seemed early before. … but ya know what? When I start it up no codes and she has her pep back. Was pretty dead on take off before. She's back to her old self and I learned something the hard way. Everyone that said I was out a tooth was bang on- thanks.

 

Glad you decided to recheck, always nice to know when a problem has been fixed. Thanks for the update.

 

Yeah, thanks for the update.
Glad you found it.