If I'm not mistaken there sould be a dot on the crankshaft sprocket and a notch in the aluminum bracket that arches around the sprocket partially.
Clean the sprocket real good to see if it's there and them put a dab of yellow (or your color of choice) paint on it for future reference.
If it's not there use a dial indicator or the old screwdriver in the spark plug hole to find when the #1 piston is at TDC. The two small holes in the cam sprockets (used for pinning the cams in position) will be towards the inside on the compresion stroke and towards the outside on the exhaust stroke. Of course you want to mark it on the compresion stroke.
If you don't have a dial indicator don't worry, you'd be surprised at how close you can get it with the screwdriver method.

Good luck,
Mark Grant - GrantRacing

 

There are 2 holes in the cam gears, rotate the motor until these hole face eachother, then take a punch or drill bit that fits snug in the holes on the cam gears. The punch.drill bit should slide through the gear and into a alignment hole in the head. Once thats done the cams are pinned at TDC. Its much easier to do this if the rocker shafts are loosened up.

I'll assume you dont have a TDC tool or dial indicator and the belts off, so pull the #1 sparkplug and stick a long screwdriver in the hole and slowly turn the crand with a 15mm wrench or socket. Turn it until the piston/screwdriver is at the top of its travel. Now the TDC occurs for a number of degrees, so be sure you turn it back and forth and find the center of TDC.

When installing the belt start on the crank and work counterclockwise and make sure to visually inspect the cam pins that they are level from the front of the car. Finish the belt install and tension it using a strain gauge. Never turn the motor CCW when checking tension. Run car a few hundred miles and retension it do longest belt life.

 

I'll also be buying new lifters, so I'm going to go ahead and remove the rocker shafts (again :bang head ). Should I install and tension the timing belt with the rocker shafts removed? Will it make it easier with no valve spring load on the cams?

Where do I get the tension gauge tool and how much? I remember a thread a while back where a member bought a tension tool and they ended up selling him some sort of attachment or something he didn't even need.

 

The company that carries it is SPX/Miller. It is part number MLR-C-4188 I think which is the "GUAGE, BELT TENSN W/OUT ADAPTER". Here is the website which has their phone number:

http://www.miller.spx.com/

I think you will have a phone option of SPX or Miller. You want SPX if memory serves me right. I think it is approx. $75 or so. I paid more because I got UPS Next Day delivery. Hope this helps.

Phillip

 

Thanks for the help. I did find the TDC mark on the crank. I used the screwdriver method and when I looked at the crank sprocket, I could finally see the notch in the seal housing and the (small) dot on the sprocket lined up.

 

I'll also be buying new lifters, so I'm going to go ahead and remove the rocker shafts (again :bang head ). Should I install and tension the timing belt with the rocker shafts removed? Will it make it easier with no valve spring load on the cams?

You should always tension the belt with the rockers loosened. Wether they are totally removed will not make any differance as long as each one backed off a few turns.