slomove Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 As you may have seen on the "Big Sky Tour" thread, I damaged my old Zetec silvertop engine by means of a dropped valve to the point that I replaced it now with a ZX3/SVT engine. Little more work than I thought but I got it running now. I also replaced all the wear and tear parts since I had the engine out (clutch, release bearing, motor mount dampers, exhaust wrap, coolant hoses etc). Still need to do the fine tuning/adaptation of the fueling map. Now, I noticed one thing that may or may not be O.K. My old engine had a timing belt tensioner pulley that was set manually and then bolted down. Obviously that stayed put and did not move. My new engine has a spring loaded tensioner pulley and I see that indicator tab jiggling a little while running, obviously due to the combined runout of the 3 sprockets, the idler and the tensioner pulley. I do have aftermarket Esslinger cam sprockets and replaced the intake cam phaser with a precision "VCT delete" bushing (not the crappy one from Massive Speed). Please have a look at the attached clip and (hopefully) confirm that this jiggle is normal for a ZX3 engine. Thanks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yx3KUaJFcg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CASwede Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Mine was open for other maintenance, so I took a quick look. No jiggle on my ZX3 with Kent sprockets. Might be time for a new tensioner pulley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coffee break Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 FWIW, try using a timing light as a strobe light. It might help isolate the problem pulley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slomove Posted August 16, 2015 Author Share Posted August 16, 2015 FWIW, I collected the swarm intelligence of the Birkinowners List, the FocusFanatics forum and local owners as well. Apparently such a jiggle is common and the idler tensioner designed to do that. At least several other people with aftermarket as well as stock sprockets reported the same. That said there may be some engines that happen to be exactly on the money with the sprocket runout so that they don't do it. For now I decided to just leave it alone. Not much I can do about it anyway. GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CASwede Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 Good to know. Congrats on the quick turnaround. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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