timing off?

[brentgt]

i have a camry 3sfe engine, i had my buddy whos a mechanic help me do the timing belt he was showing me how to do it. anyways once the job was done the car ran like crap. it had no power at all and bogged out big time. i then thought trying to adjust the distributor and it turned out that when it was about 30 degrees advance the car ran awesome. so this brings me to wonder how many teeth we were out once the job was done.. and do you guys think this is okay to run my car like this ?? it runs fine

Thanks

[new echo owner]

You didn't line up the timing marks properly. Somewhere there is a post recently talking about that. It is not right to just advance the distributor to keep the engine running, there are other factors involve, like emission, etc. Just re-time it and get it done right.

Take the upper timing cover off, line up the balancer, loosen up the tensioner, line up the cam gear by lining up the hole on the gear with the slot on the cam cap. Take up all the slack of the belt to the tensioner side, set the tensioner. Rotate the engine over a couple of turns, recheck the timing marks. If good start it up, reset your timing.

N.E.O.