I didn't get that far tonight, but I appreciate you hanging in there with me to figure this out. I'll have to pick at it after work this week and see where everything is situated with the timing marks lined up.

The firing order is 123456.

If one side has no compression, it shoud crank (without spark or fuel) like thump whoosh thump whoosh etc.

Shine a light in the plug hole and look at the top of the pistons - should see valve scars if it dinged them.

Look at the valve heights on the dinged side - if the valves are bent, some valves that are not depressed by the cam should be lower than the undinged side. Maybe not much, but measurable.

As much as I hate to say it I'm following this thread closely. After I throw the 94 3.5 into my 87 and make sure everything is in order and working, i will be pulling it out and going thru it. I will be be paying close attention to these "rookie" mistakes (whatever) when I go thru mine. Wishing you luck dude. And you guys throwing ideas out there (fasteddy, wwff, toasty, all of youse guys, much appreciated).

For a rookie you picked one of the tricker motors to be mass produced and sold in large quantity to Joe public I must say...Mitsu makes some trick motors <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/evil.gif" alt="" />...

Cam lobes on cyl #1 should be facing "out" away from each other .. Cam lobes on cyl #2 should be facing "in" to each other ..

Think about it .. Cyl #1 is timed on the compression/firing stroke and you cant have a valve open it will just dump the compression out the open valve ..Right...

Alway check where your cams are once the belts on .. Like I said dont care about timing marks its where the cams are once I'm done that matters... One of my tricks is as soon as the motors at the point I can turn it over with the starter and the plugs in it I do ...As someone who builds motor as my day job ..I've seen a mess of motors with hyd belt tensioners jump time on the first crank over ...Mitsu's are real bad for it ...Cranking a motor over with no spark or fuel really puts a load on it .. With spark and fuel the cylinders are firing and helping to turn the motor..

And you can hear the rhythm of the motor as it turns over too..If you have a low hole ( low cyl compression) you will hear it and feel it..

Like Eddy said ... I hope you did not hurt any thing...

FYI - your mistakes are not rookie mistakes. The 3.5 is one of the most difficult motors to get together correctly that I've ever worked on - when I pulled the heads off of mine a number of years ago I had issues once I got it back together also. Turned out that I apparently didn't get some of the rocker arms securely in place - one of them had actually come off of the pivot and got stuck sideways under the cam, digging a groove in it's cam lobe. One of the others had come completely off. While I'm not an engine builder or mechanic by trade I've worked on numerous OHC engines over the years and consider myself to be pretty mechanically inclined - I've never had the kind of issues that I did with this engine.

Keep with it - we're keeping our fingers crossed for you!

Not looking good..wish you the best though.

3.5 is a tough motor to work on no doubt!

I lunched some passenger side valves when I did my first timing belt change.

The FSM is translated out of order, they have you rotate the crank with the cams lined up and belted up, but without the crank sprocket belted in.

I should have knew better but I let my internal dumb-arse get the best of me "go ahead give it a whirl, that is what the instructions say derrrrrrrrrrrr" <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cyclops.gif" alt="" />

Good luck!

Alright, quick update after doing some digging around tonight. I think the passenger side is ok via compression numbers. all 180lbs or better. Here is where it gets interesting:

I compared the driver side cams with my old head because I could not tell the difference between the intake and exhaust cams on my new head. I also went to PA_JERO's house to look at Lloyd's engine just to verify. I looked at the cam lobes with the pin straight up. Here's what I found:

New head:

Intake cam - Lobe#1&2 = 1 o'clock. Lobe#3&4 = 9 o'clock.
Exhaust cam - Lobe#1&2 = 1 o'clock. Lobe#3&4 = 9 o'clock

Old Head:

Intake cam - Lobe#1&2 = 4 o'clock. Lobe#3&4 = 12 o'clock.
Exhaust cam -Lobe#1&2 = 1 o'clock. Lobe#3&4 = 9 o'clock

Lloyd's head:

Intake cam - Lobe#1&2 = 4 o'clock. Lobe#3&4 = 12 o'clock
Exhaust cam - Lobe#1&2 = 1 o'clock. Lobe#3&4 = 9 o'clock

So it appears Clearwater shipped me a driver side head with two exhaust cams in it. They are identical, and neither cam matches the two other intake cams I have looked at.

So the $64,000 question is: Will having two exhaust cams on the same head F up the valves? I'm going to call Clearwater tomorrow so they can make this right. I hope it is as "simple" as putting in an actual intake cam where it belongs and all will be right with the world for a change. What do you guys think?

Jay, You've no doubt worked long and hard on this engine, not to mention the $$ outlaid. Don't give up!
That said, there's enough quirks to start a "what not to do when rebuilding the DOHC" sticky.
Best of luck, I wish I had some sage wisdom to impart... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />
I'm not sure, but if there's an issue that is Clearwater's fault, you might be able to recoup some $$ from them.

I they didn't give me a hefty partial refund, I'd be MapQuesting a route to FL for a face to face discussion. They were great when I spoke with them in the past for my 2.6 head, and then again for the 3.0 24V. Hopefully they will do you right...

BTW, don't loose sight of what bright side is there- that you didn't muck something up in your work. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />