OK I searched... and I have the manual printed out. The manual though just tells you to put the CAS in with the marks on the pulley lined up with the pin on the front cover. Doesn't mention anything about looking in the actual CAS with the cover off. I read a ton of threads, but I'm still retarded. What teeth am I lining up, and with what (inside the CAS)?

So far I am test fitting the front cover, pulley, CAS...
I have this pic of my marks from the pulley. It's a bit blurry, but the mark with the pin is yellow, and next to it is the red one:


Next a top shot, showing the mark and the key of the e-shaft. Is this how it's supposed to be?


Finally, here is the CAS. I found a pic while searching saying that the teeth should line up like this. Is this correct based on how the pulley is now?


I know the timing will not be dead on this way, but it should be sufficient to get the engine to run until I can get a light on it, correct?

Thanks!

 

Looks like you should have it within the ballpark. That is how i set mine up, and it eventually started. You'll still have to put a light on it. Hope it helps

 

Yeah. You should be withing five degrees give or take.

Your missing the concept just a little bit. Next time you have your CAS out of the engine, align the mark on the bottom CAS gear with the mark on the CAS housing. THEN, hold that positon and now look in the top of the CAS. You'll see that what your looking at is similar to your last picture.

If you align the marks on the bottom of the CAS, and just install it into the front cover, the gear in the CAS will rotate and the marks on the bottom of the CAS will now not be aligned anymore. But you wouldn't know that because......now you can't see the marks on the bottom CAS gear anymore. OUtta sight.

But NOW you know that when the CAS bottom gear marks are aligned, that the inside of the TOP of the CAS looks just like your last picture. So common sense tells you to align the marks on the bottom of the CAS, and then install the CAS. THEN look into the top of the CAS and rotate the CAS body til everything looks just like what you have in your last picture.

The FSM should have made this clear and should have mentioned taking that top cover off so you could tell if the CAS is installed right or not.

 

I just looked at your last jpg and noticed something. It SEEMS the CAS body is already rotated all the way clockwise as far as it will go. I'd pull that CAS and reinstall it a tooth off one way or the other. I'm saying reinstall it til you get it so that when the top of the CAS is just like it is now in your picture, BUT the body of the CAS isn't rotated all the way clockwise or all the way counter clockwise. So that when you do get a timing light on it, you will have room to rotate the cas body one way or the other to get the timing spot on.

During all this you DO want the pulley and the fixed pin to be opposite eachother. Just a reminder.

But even if you leave it as is in your last picture, the timing should be within five degrees easily. Just no room to rotate the CAS body clockwise later IF needed.

 

Thanks HAILERS. Just the one thing that's confusing me. "align the mark on the bottom CAS gear with the mark on the CAS housing." I have no marks. Am I supposed to be making my own marks to work off of?

As for the last pic and the rotation of the housing, I was futzing with it to try and get it more towards the middle. I will keep trying until I am able to get it so.

I'm pretty sure I put the gear on the shaft right, although it's real hard to tell which end is which, it's almost perfectly flat! Could this throw me off center with mounting the CAS? I didn't bolt anything in place yet, just trying to "practice" installing the CAS.

Thanks

 

OK. I see what you mean by the marks on the gear. I was getting confused with the term of "bottom gear", thinking you meant the 24 tooth gear inside the CAS housing. Trying to get this sucker to line up now!

 

OK an update, or lack there of... I cannot for the life of me get the CAS around the middle. I tried dozens of times multiple positions and it either ends up like the pic I posted, or totally off in another direction and nowhere near where it should be (and not adjustable to where it needs to be). Could the marks on the pulley be wrong? They are about 90 degrees to the key on the e-shaft. Now I must mention this is a pulley off a j-spec (same series turbo motor) because my pulley did not have any marks on it. I can't get this to line up no matter what I tried (was at it for an hour). What am I doing wrong?

 

The last time this happened on this forum, RETED suggested it was the pulley that was wrong. Put your old pulley on and see if it makes a difference. OOOPS, I see, your old pulley has no mark. Look at it more carefully for the marks. They're there somewhere. Might not be much left of them, but they're there.

In my minds eye, Mazda's tooling got screwed up somewhere along the line b/t series. Somehow, someway. Kinda screwy since the fixed pointer is in the same place and TDC is still ninty degrees from the keyway on the eccentric shaft. It's stupid, whatever happened. Must be the tooling that drills the four holes in the pulley HUB, that is different.

 

Read this thread. Skip most everything til you get to the post by the RETED.

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...t=pulley+marks

 

I did find that thread after some searching I am going to try looking at my old pulley/hub and see what's what. Worst case scenario, I may have to do some grinding on the CAS mount. Either way, something is bound to work. Thanks for the help.

 

Yes, if it's not the pulley being the problem, it's possible the drive gear for the CAS is on backwards. NOT the gear attached to the bottom of the CAS, but the gear on the eccentric shaft that drives the CAS. It's not that difficult to install it backwards (champer on the gear faces aft).

Or any RacingBeat one piece pulley should be correct. Cost about sixty bucks but unfortunatley is a underdrive pulley.

In other words I suspect the four holes drilled in the HUB being different on different series. Or the four bolt holes in the pulley itself are drilled a bit off from series to series. Who knows. I have no series five pulleys/hubs.

No reply being looked for. Just a FYI

 

Well I'll reply anyway. After realizing I'm a dingus, I understood about the mounting of the drive gear. I had/have it right, so no problem there. I'll be checking tomorrow regarding the pulley. FYI these are both S4 motors. Even so, maybe the pulley holes are wrong on the current one I'm toying with.

Food for thought...
Why did Mazda make the holes offset, as to only mount one way? OK, I can understand, but then again I'm sure many people "ovaled" the holes to just get the damn thing on. Why couldn't they just mark the pulley and say "this marked hole has to be next to the key" and low and behold, the timing marks are at such and such position, life is good. It wouldn't matter as long as they were in line with the key, right? I'm nit picking, but it seems like things could have been drastically simplified. Even more so, why do the marks differ between pulleys?! This damn engine has 3 moving parts! Why is this so complicated!