As above.

Please keep all comments about timing belt replacement here for future ease use.

http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showflat.p...amp;Search=true

http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showflat.p...amp;Search=true

http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showflat.p...amp;Search=true

http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showflat.p...amp;Search=true

http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showflat.p...amp;Search=true

Thes should give an overview of what to do to replace the timing belt.

[color:"green"]ADVANCE, OE, OR RETARD CAM TIMING.[/color]
You really don't need a timing light to set timing belt as timing is monitored by the exhaust cam sensor. I once tried to advance both intake and exhaust 1 tooth and And I wouldn't even mess with changing exhaust timing at all. found this out the "easy" way, lol. Ran like crap. So I set the exhaust back to OE and set the intake 1 tooth advanced as I did the prior attempt. I ran it that way for a few years untill a few months ago. Felt better low end a little. Then I tried the intake cam one tooth BEHIND and it seems to loose the low end a bit but then wakes up in the higher rpms a little. But neither has really made a big difference. I think OE or 1 tooth advance if you want more torque.. especially if you own an automatic, don't bother advancing the intake cam because you'll never get the benefit of increased HP in the high RPMS as the transmission shifts before you get there. Friend's sportage is auto. I'd suggest the 1 tooth advanced method for auto's as they tend to stay in the low rpms and that's where the torque increased by doing this.
If we had adjustable cam gears, then I might tinker with my exhaust cam timing to attempt to advance my ignition timing a little, but a tooth advanced is too much. I think a little advance of the ignition timing would be a bigger trade off the the advanced exhaust cam. I could be totally off on this though, lol.

i think your right pan. some way to advance the timing just a little would be great. ive heard of relocating knock sensors before. any ideas?

It would be your knock sensor, it'd be your cam position sensor.

Move it counter the cam's rotation 1 degree will give you 2 degrees of ignition advance...

...I think

That sounds bout right.. You don't want to mess with your nock sensor as this senses the onset of knocking and then the ECU pulls your ignition timing back to prevent it from getting worse.. It's only a matter of a second or two that the timing returns to normal.. This only happens under the harshest of conditions and mostly on boosted engines.. too much heat and boost combined will cause knocking.. an N/A motor rarely has this problem, but the knock sensor is a fail safe that saves your motor from destroying itself from over advancing the timing when the conditions are wrong for it.. I've been using a smartphone app to monitor my timing and it totally varies depending on throttle % and other things.. At idle it typically is 0-2 degrees advanced.. when you start to load it up and rev it up the timing shoots up to 22+ advanced. I have thought about 'slotting' the exhaust cam position sensor as that is primarily what the ECU bases it's spark timing.. That way I could pull timing back once I boost mine.. This would be tricking the computer to fire later which is proper for boosted appications, however now that i'm thinking about this deeper.. the fuel injector timing would be equally affected. would probably be fine under near to full WOT conditions but at idle I might inadvertently cause the injectors to fire fuel as the valves are closing. The fuel would inevitably be pulled in on the next opening of the valve but would that affect atomization maybe? It's one of those things where I'll just try it in baby steps and see what happens. If I feel improvement then i'll be encouraged to push it further, if it just runs worse then I'd return it to stock position. For the N/A applications, you'd wanna try slotting it advanced. Baby steps.. I have suspicions that the Protege Cam gears are interchangable with ours. I should hit up my friend who has his and see. If so, then we would be able to order the Ford Probe Fidanza Adjustable Cam Gears and use the on our FE3 Engines. This would allow us to mess with the cams in small increments and if we slotted the ex. cam sensor we could adjust it to match the offset of the cam so that the ignition timing remains the same. (=

A note to anyone doing the timing belt: Get the gasket that goes between the water outlet/t-stat housing and the head before you start. It's the one with 2 bolt holes (the one where the actual thermostat goes has 3 holes). It doesn't come with the timing kits or water pump, but the easiest way to get the upper timing cover off is to pull the whole neck off.
I've got the whole thing torn down and none of the local parts places have one- I'm stuck making my own.

Edit: the part number on the gasket you need is 35709 from Fel-Pro.

I've had the t-stat housing extension off quite a few times. I've used a thin layer of RightStuff Gasket Maker every time I've reassembled it and haven't had a leak - not a drop. It's a lot easier than making a gasket and cheaper than buying one. You just need to make sure you don't use too much because the squeeze-out will reduce the opening of the coolant passage. That gasket maker is great! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Not familiar with that stuff. I'm sure it's good, but I get Permatex grey RTV for free so that's my sealant of choice when I need to use something in a tube.
But I'm still partial to using gaskets when that's what was in there before- there's always going to be squeeze-out and I like to keep the inside of my rad and water jackets as clean as possible. Also making a gasket is ridiculously easy if you use the hammer method. You just stick your gasket stock to the part you're sealing with hi-tack, take the ball peen end of your hammer and *gently* taptaptaptaptaptaptap around each edge- the edge will cut the gasket perfectly for you. I've had to do it a bunch of times at work and twice on my own stuff.

The "Right Stuff" brand rtv is AMAZING! I work in a shop and that's what we've used for years. It seals diff pans (as long as you clean and dry all oil). They also make an 'easy cheese' style can of it that is oil resistant so it will stick even to slightly oily surfaces. I prefer to just use the tstat gaskets on my Killa so i'm not scraping and cleaning and then re rtv'ing the housing. It's faster that way and if you have shopped online the gasket is only a couple bucks if you find the right place. Rockauto had a sale goin on sportage parts and I bought a spare tstat gasket for like 79 cents. btw, I've grown tired of the coolant housing through the timing cover bit so I ended up cutting my upper half of the cover. This way I can check my intake/exhaust cam gears timing in relation to the crank pulley timing mark without opening up the cooling system. Saves ALOT of time if that's all you wanted to do. If you want to replace the timing belt, unfortunately you still must pull the stat housing. Oh and to add, I keep my top cover (not shown in pic) on. Otherwise you're asking for stuff to fall into your timing belt area and make a mess of your belt

Just ordered the Warn locking hubs from amazon. Should be here Monday. I hope they are as easy to install as everyone says and that they make some difference in the snow. Thanks to everyone for their input. I really appreciate it.