Just say one puts their crank trigger wheel on backwards, lines up the timing marks per Mitsu, and turns the motor over by hand.

Will the valves contact the pistons at this point, or will they be very close?

A friend did this exact thing and timed his motor with the crank trigger wheel on backwards, and was worried that it the valves were hitting the pistons as the motor was tough to turn over, and wasn't when he had the trigger wheel properly lined up.

Didn't have an answer for him.

Thoughts?

 

Just for clarification, by backwards you mean 180deg out of phase?
So TDC now becomes BDC and vise versa

 

Yes sir.

 

What's the question ? If he bent valves? You can't really bend valves by hand but with your starter you can.

 

You cant put the wheel on 180 out as it has a cutout for the crank key. The only way you can install it wrong is by putting it on backwards. IE: Inside out. So in that case the answer is YES! The valves with contact the pistons. How bad depends on what cams are installed. I did this on my BR cams and the motor wouldnt turn over all the way. So i wrote "OUTSIDE" on my trigger wheel which should have been done in the first place.

 

That's exactly what he did. The thing that scared him is that he got the motor to turn over by hand, however, Anarchy above said that he couldn't have bent a valve if the motor was just turned over by hand.

I'm a bit nervous as I was there, and the trigger wheel was installed backwards. However, the dish on his pistons is ridiculous (Wiseco HDs), so I couldn't imagine that they hit that bad.

I highly doubt a valve can be bent by turning the motor over by hand.

Perhaps someone else could comment on the aforementioned issue.

 

If he lined the timing marks up using the mark on the trigger, yes damage is possible but if the motor was timed using the mark on the crank balancer and lower timing cover therefore being correctly timed, there should be no problems with the pistons and valves touching.

 

It was corrected. The initial turning over with backwards trigger wheel was my only concern for him, as it was very hard to turn over, however, it did turn over after a little effort, and I doubt valves would bend that easily by hand.

 

You would have to hang from a 6 foot breaker bar in order to bend valves by hand. Like I said using the starter to turn the motor over can bend valves however

 

I think the resistance he felt was probably from the crank sensor. The trigger wheel isn't flat, and will contact the sensor pretty solidly if it's on backwards. Not good, but better than bent valves.