I believe the air coming out of the intake when the front 3 pistons come up on the compression stroke is my entire problem and has been since I installed the engine. I think it is the only reason why it won't idle since half of the engine is creating vacuum (cylinders 1, 3, and 5) and the other half is just blowing air into the intake. I've checked cam timing over, and over, and over again and I know 100% that it is right.

What I'm going to do is put the front head on that came off of the maxima engine and hope that it works. Hopefully it will.

My question is this, what are the chances that the head gasket will still be good since its not been on for very long and the engine hasn't been ran much? It seems the gaskets used on the exhaust manifold can be taken off quite a bit before they tear apart and since the headgasket is made of the same material I would think it would do the same. Hopefully it will work otherwise I'm not sure if I should pull the head or not. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks in advance!

 

ive never reused a head gasket on any car engine before. but ive rebiuld so many small engines "lawnmower/gocart" it will make most peoples head spin and i only use new had gaskets when the gasket set comes with one or it falls apart and ive never had any problems but i also know that the compression is lower, but if it looks fine and you want to save money try it. worst case you have to replace it which wont cost you anything but the new gasket good luck. ive been acking to see what this engine can do in a max

 

There is no way I would take a chance and re use a headgasket much less one for a car with a turbo.

 

have you tried turning just the one cam a full turn? sounds like you've got one that's cranked a turn over.

either that or the valves are sticking open on them, but I doubt that.

 

 

Do you mean as if it was 180 degrees off?

I've also had the heads cleaned recently. Full cleaning and valve job plus i got the mating surfaces milled flat so there has to be minimal chances of a sticking valve, like you thought.

 

As Matt93SE said.....are you sure your cam is in time? It's either that or a valve is hanging up...maybe a bent valve during install/setup. As for the head gasket, most these days are non-retroque type. these gaskets are designed to compress and seat as you torque it up. They will not re-seat. Best just to get a new one.

 

How are you verifying the cam gears are on the timing belt correctly? Is it possible you switched the left and right cam gears when you put them back on the heads? It sounds a lot like you have the one cam 180 degrees off.

 

nope, put the cam gears on correctly R goes on the rear and L goes on the front. its different than most people think since they right and left is based from looking towards the back of the engine.

I have the cam gear's timing mark lined up with the timing mark on the cover then correctly with the marks on the belt so I'm 100% positive its setup how it should be.

 

Decided to try something new tonight so I took off the rockers and lifters and had my dad crank the engine so I could check if my valves were indeed leaking. He cranked it and no air was leaking out of the intake at all... so, that leads me to believe there has to be something wrong with the lifters, rockers, the cam, or the cam gear. Anyone ever hear any strange stories of one of those items messing up?

 

Did you ever get a chance to do a compression test since you were having the problems? I've heard of cam gears snapping off but thats about the only thing i can think of going wrong yet.

 

How hard was the engine to crank?

 

compression test was perfect even with the air coming out of the intake. with the throttle wide open i was getting 175-180 psi on each cylinder.

engine cranked very smoothly.