Timing

I looking for someone who may be able to tell me how to time my 97 1.3l metro. I had to replace the pistons because the skirt on #2 piston let go and along with #1 piston had hair line crack where #2 let go so we decided to replace all of them to keep the engine balanced. The car only has 71,000 miles on it and it has now been rebuilt. I would appreciate any info on how to time this engine.

Cylinder 1 to Top Dead Center, then line the cam gear's timing mark up with the notch in the valve cover. Install belt, tension belt. You're all set.

Thanks for the info. So, that is all a person needs to do to time it correctly? Wow, that isn't hard at all.

Yep. It's pretty easy. Just make sure cylinder 1 is at a PERFECT TDC. If you are off by 1 tooth, you can bend all your valves. 360 degrees in a circle/40 teeth on a cam gear = 9 degrees per tooth. Then your cams turn at exactly half the speed of the crankshaft. So 1 tooth off on the cam gear=18 degrees of rotation of the crank.