Engine problems! PLEASE help!

[JonT]

I had a similar problem after putting my engine back in, but it was a bit more a lack of power than just pinging. The 4AGE is very sensitive to timing issues. I had set mine to 10 btdc and everytime i looked at it with a timing light it was showing that. What i hadn't done was short the service connector, once i realised my mistake and reset it all with it shorted the car was running fine. If you look at the timing now it can be over 20 btdc but the ecu has it under control.

The bottom timing pully is attached to the crankshaft by a bolt, but there is a woodruff key to stop it rotating. A previous car lost all power, it felt like a timing issue but i could never sort it out. Later on after an ebgine swap i find that the crank had worn a groove and was able to rotate on the key thus messing up the timing. I would say that this is a pretty uncommon problem, make sure you have the timing set correctly with the service connector shorted first.