Hello all, I bought a 54 plate 75 with a shot headgasket ( or so I thought), the car started and ran very smoothly but clouds of steam/light grey smoke from the exhaust that disappeared after a few minutes of running, and so I got the car home and started to strip it. When I got to lining up timing marks as per the book, I found that when the timing marks are lined up on the camshafts, the mark on the crankshaft is at the TDC mark and not in line with the mark shown in the manuals, so my question really is can the car run smoothly with the timing this far out, or is the 1.8 turbo timing different to the rest of the K16 engines, Thanks in advance for any help forwarded
Might have just been a leaking inlet manifold gasket from what you describe.
From recent experience the engine will run with the cams one tooth out but it won't run right, more than one tooth I haven't experienced but I would be surprised if valve damage and no start did not occur at more than one tooth out. Setting the timing of the turbo is the same as for the non-turbo.
The cam wheels have a slot marked "IN" at one end and "EX" at t'other, the roll pin on the EXHAUST cam should be positioned to "EX" and the roll pin on the INLET cam should be positioned to "IN". I would check this as it is sometimes found to be wrong when things don't line up. A pic of the EXHAUST cam wheel with the roll pin correctly positioned to"EX": Click
