If you are doing this on a fresh engine - with fresh bearings, which have a ton of engine lube, the shaft will not fall no matter where you put it. That is why.

 

Engine has 15,800 on it. Stock Motor.

 

mine didnt fall back either, but if you turn it you'll notice when it pushes forward from 6pm to 9pm and thats where you know its going to fall back at 12. I ended up doing the screw driver method as well just to be safe, it only takes 5minutes extra.

 

saved to the favorites :P Looking to do this soon.

 

Just did the timing belt/water pump/pulleys/balance belt, for the IX this weekend and have some pointers:
-easiest way to remove idler pulley (accessory belt): once your engine mount is removed, engine is propped on a jack, and accessory belt removed - lower the engine all the way down and you'll have enough room from the bottom to loosen and tighten back to spec.

-if you have all the tools necessary, this job isn't that (relative) difficult. I highly recommend 3/8 drive torque wrench. That's what I used to torque pretty much everything in the engine bay, except for the motor mount. That beast needs 87 lbs of torque. lol.

-It's a lot easier mounting the t-belt when the tensioner pulley is off - it gives you enough slack to install the belt easily. Wrap the t-belt around the crankshaft sprocket, then the oil sprocket, behind the tensioner pulley, and over the intake/exhaust cam sprockets. Then, install the tensioner pulley, and hand tighten.

-For the balance belt, you don't need to take out the crankshaft sprocket. Like what other said, remove the crank sensor (two 10mm bolts), and slip the balance belt behind the sensor disk. Do not use force, because you'll bend that disk - and you'll be in a world of hurt. Just rotate the crank slightly so that you can slip the belt behind the spaced portion of the disk.

-Before I removed the timing belt, I made sure everything was at their timing marks - intake/exhaust cams, oil pump, crank and balancer sprocket. I made marks on the sprocket teeth and the old timing and balance belt. I transferred those new marks onto the new belts and made sure those lined up when I installed.

-Take your time. It's not a race. Triple check everything is torqued and aligned.

 

Ill agree this isnt as bad as people say it is.
I was scared to do it, but a friend talked me into it and is helping me alot.
I gt a kit from Jay racing that helps too. this little plastic piece to keep the cam gears aligned makes things ALOT easier!

 

Timing belt is easy on the evo. just follow the vfaq guide for the 2g (minus rotating a cam 1 tooth off). something ive noticed is if you have aftermarket cams ussually your TDC will be off by a few degrees. 1-4 deg is fine, anything more and tensions off a tooth. and check belt deflection on balance shaft belt before you remove and use the housing behind it as a guide of deflection for the new one you install. Also for the power steering bracket, do not attempt to remove the inside bolts first there are outside long bolts that pull the housing apart then you can get to the inside bolts afterwords - i know a lot of people probably tried this (including myself) on both my evo and my dsm's.

 

^^ lol, yeah I know what you mean about the power steering pump. I checked out the shop manual for that.

 

LOL. you should see my poor bolt on the inside - it got raped for a good 10 minutes before my brain turned back on

 

one more thing to note that should help some people, when you have proper tension the 2 holes on the tensioner pulley will actually face almost identical to this picture:

still always make sure the grenade pin slides freely in/out though to 100% confirm.

 

Don't get used to looking at that picture though. It's a whole lot different looking from just the top and bottom

 

I just did my T-belt a couple weekends ago and I'm glad I had this guide. We did learn something and I don't know if it's mentioned. Instead of the screw driver trick or just marking it and letting it go, I took a 14mm gear wrench and put it on the oil pump sprocket, lined up TDC and then laid the wrench across the front of the crankshaft sprocket so that the oil pump sprocket couldn't turn counter-clockwise. As long as you keep tension on the belt and the right side of the sprocket you're free to line up the camshafts and put the belt on. IDK neither of us had ever done an Evo T-belt so if you're a noob like me maybe it will help.
Thanks to Volunteer and Cajun. This guide helped a ton.

 

Wow, that's alot of work. Thank you for the write though!

 

looks like i got some work ahead of me...lol thanks for the write up/info

 

I greatly appreciate the how to for the timing belt thanks guys, but I have a quick question after I did mine I have a slight whine coming from the belt very faint I'm thinking it's the fact that it's the gates kevlar timing belt but I'm not sure any ideas? FYI I changed the water pump, balance shaft belt, timing belt, Idler pulley, tensioner pulley, and hydraulic tensioner took me about 10 hours of combined time but I was being very careful considering it's my first time changing a timing belt.