Timing belt broke...I put new one in. Car starts good...idles kinda low and rough. When you give it gas...it hesitates. And a complete loss of power while driving. Motorsounds good....no knocking or pinging. Any ideas?????

 

Ifyour engine is the "non interference" type, meaning when the belt breaks, the valves don't bend...worst case you are probably one or two teeth off meaning your marks weren't lined up when you put the new belt on and you'll need to take it all apart and correct your belt timing issue. Best case scenario, you just need to adjust your ignition timing on your distributor. Those are my two ideas, I hope that helps.

 

Adjusting your ignition timing can correct about two teeth and should correct your issue. If you need to move the belt a couple of teeth you can attempt to do it with just the top cover off I reacall this working for a buddy with an 89. but, the distributor adjuster should correct it.

 

Recheck and adjust if required the cam/crank timing. It is possible to do this by removing the top cover, removing the belt and rotating the cam pulley.

You can not compensate for cam/crank timing errors at the distributor. This is the physically relationship between the cam and crank it can't be errored out by rotating the distributor.

If the engine ran OK before the timing belt change it should run the same after if you did not move the distributor.

 

Toyo your wrong in the 89 the distributor can move to retard the timing. I've done this at least three times with my own 89 when I owned it.

 

I think ignition and valve timing are getting confused here. You can adjust the ignition timing to fire at the correct time in relation to the crankshaft. However if the cam and crank are not properly set the valve timing will be out of synch and the engine will not run properly. If the belt is not properly adjusted you will not get the engine to run properly regardless of how you adjust ignition timing. Valve timing is just as important as ignition timing and both must be right.

 

flyer1 is correct!

If the cam and crank pulley relationship is not correct adjusting the ign timing will do nothing to correct this.