I have reason to believe that some EVOs might come from the factory with the cam(s) installed wrong I was told that a cam was found to be one tooth off from the factory ...... I'm not sure about the details of whether it was advanced or retarded or which of them it was or if it was both. I do know that this particular EVO was very sensitive to timing advance. Almost any timing advance would result in lots of knock which in turn caused the ECU to pull timing so the car would lose power like mad Apparently this is no longer the case.... This is a preliminary finding, more details will follow as I learn more about this..... It might be good for ppl who experience this excessive knocking and timing pull from their stock EVOs to document this with some 3rd gear pulls with a wide band O2 sensor, a knock link and datalogging.... Who knows, maybe will correct this under warranty......

 

i'm pretty sure then engine would blow up if the teeth were not aligned correctly, btw where did you get this info from?

 

Not necessarily so... the cams can be timed incorrectly but not enough off to cause destruction of the engine, but quite enough to screw up the timing...... I'll post more details as I have more solid information. I'll reveal my sources after I can consult with them about publishing their names....

 

The car has crankshaft position sensor and a camshaft position sensor. You'd think the two sensors would be able to detect the mismatch caused by the cam being a tooth off. I looked at the shop manual but it doesn't mention this.

 

Don't think so, cause even if the cam was off by one tooth, it would not run right or idle. On tooth on the cam gear is 8 degrees so whether it was retarded or advanced. It would not run right, car would have next to no power.

 

You speak the truth,I heard the same as you Silver. Just recently I had my car tuned by Shiv at the TX. Dyno day. While tuning Shiv commented that my car was prone to more knock than most. He said that thier shop car had the same problems. After installing cam gears they learned after retarding the gears a degree at a time the car started making more power and less knock. Eventually, after lots of testing settled on -5 on both intake and exhaust with the car making alot more power with virtually no knock. In that very same conversation Shiv mentioned about the possible cam timing problems of some EVO's from Mitsubishi causing them to be knock prone. I am not sure if this was something that he had heard about or experienced first hand. But it came up in conversation while talking about a solution to my cars knock prone condition. Hence, soon the cam gears will be going in.

 

Actually, one tooth equals 7.5° rather than 8°. I don't know how much that would affect the running of the engine. Also, I do not know if there is enough room for adjustment in the rest of the cam drive so that 1 tooth could be compensated enough so the car would run fine except that the valve timing would be advanced such that the timing of the ignition would be compromised......

 

When you unplug your knock sensor the computer automatically retards timing by 8 degrees and still runs fine. Down on power but, you would never know if your car had always been that way. So what I'm saying is 8 degrees reatarded is not enough for your average driver to really notice if his car has always been that way.

 

Wouldn't this problem be very obvious when swapping out cams or cam gears? When I did my cam swap I set the crank to TDC. Both of my cam gears were dead on with the TDC marks stamped on the valve cover.

 

Please elaborate. We obviously need clarification if there is confusion.

My point is that if the cam(s) are off the car could run OK but would exhibit symptoms such as a propensity to knock when ignition timing is advanced.....

In theory, if the cam was advanced but off, it would actually tend to run very strongly until the ignition timing got advanced when it would knock and the timing would get pulled back.. Does this make sense?

 

Mitsubishi kwalitie ****roll iz numberr 1.

 

I don't think the timing is set wrong (cams gears 1 tooth off), I think that there is a batch of improperly indexed cams out there. Just a hunch I have after reading about all the knock problems.

 

I think that's what the "one tooth off" comment really means.... If that's the case, all those knocking EVOs can be cured!