I have a 1982 honda Accord EL 1.6 Litre. The head has been removed and we replaced it yesterday. We had put the engine back together but it does not idle. It will only run when your foot is on the gas. We first checked the timing but could not even see the white mark in the hole with the timing light. Then concerned that we had not set the cam timing correctly we pulled off the tappet cover to take a look. Although we had initially made a mark (in black...in itself a stupid mistake) on the cam wheel while the engine was at top dead centre we were unable to see that mark again. Therefore I wonder if anyone can tell us what marks we need to line up where so this thing will run as it should. We see a small arrow on the casing that we have lined up with a main indentation on the cam wheel when at top dead centre though we are concerned that there may be some parallex error in reading this as we are veiwing it from an angle (can't get head right in there...either head too big or space to small, I feel it is most probably the latter) but again can't be certain. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

make sure car is at top dead # 1 ,, there is a notch on the cam pulley that should be up,, also on the pulley there are 2 marks one on each side,
when car at top dead # 1 ,, the mark on the left should line up with the arrow on the head,
DO NOT line i up the notch on the cam pulley EVEN with the head,, the arrow is slightly below