1.6 ecoboost poor performance after timing belt replacement

[JarnoV]

I have been the owner of a Fiesta ST180 for about 3 years now. I used the car for road use only during these years and now i am planning to make it a race car. Since the car aproached 100k km’s i’ve asked my local ford dealer to place a new timing belt, in order to prepare for some big stage2 upgrades. Since i got the car back the car runs rough at idle (shocking and shaking between 700-800rpm). The car doesn’t accelerate as fast anymore as before and the mpg got down alot. I went back the day after and they said nothing was wrong because there weren’t any fault codes in the ECU. They sold me oem spark plugs (which costed me €100) I’ve changed the spark plugs myself and cleaned the air filter but that hasn’t fixed the issue. I went back to the dealer and told them this isn’t how the car drove before and I am not happy about their service. I asked them if it is possible that they made a mistake with the timing of the cams when installing the new belt, but their asnwer was no because it’s not possible to make mistakes with the tools. And they don’t see the problem since there aren’t any fault codes, like is that the only thing dealers do these days? Reading fault codes?… what do you think about this? I am clueless and not happy since i ordered €1500 of parts to upgrade my FiST, but in this state i won’t tune the engine. Thanks in advance.

 

[the duke]

I'd wager the timing is off. Interested in hearing what others think.

Is it misfiring at idle or just evenly running out of timing?

 

[D1JL]

I would have the crank to cam timing checked again.
The performance can be affected by any sprocket being off just one tooth.
I would bet that the crank is retarded a tooth as it is difficult to misalign the cams.

 

[SteveS]

Not normal. If it were mine I'd be back at the dealer making them fix the car. They've either installed the belt with the cams in the wrong position or messed up with the tensioner. This video explains it pretty well:

 

[JarnoV]

I'd wager the timing is off. Interested in hearing what others think.

Is it misfiring at idle or just evenly running out of timing?

I don’t think it’s misfiring because it doesn’t shoot any trouble codes. I checked with forscan. I was thinking of an injector malfunction but that would be strange. I dropped the car of at the dealer with full horsepower and got it back with performance loss.

 

[Jason@dizzytuning]

verify proper cam timing

 

[SteveS]

Don't believe the computer. Have them visually check the position of the timing belt and tensioner. If the fuel injection or something else were messed up, that would throw a code.

 

[Mycooking]

They messed up the timing 100% and don't want to admit it.

 

[YouGnomeSane]

I have been the owner of a Fiesta ST180 for about 3 years now. I used the car for road use only during these years and now i am planning to make it a race car. Since the car aproached 100k km’s i’ve asked my local ford dealer to place a new timing belt, in order to prepare for some big stage2 upgrades. Since i got the car back the car runs rough at idle (shocking and shaking between 700-800rpm). The car doesn’t accelerate as fast anymore as before and the mpg got down alot. I went back the day after and they said nothing was wrong because there weren’t any fault codes in the ECU. They sold me oem spark plugs (which costed me €100) I’ve changed the spark plugs myself and cleaned the air filter but that hasn’t fixed the issue. I went back to the dealer and told them this isn’t how the car drove before and I am not happy about their service. I asked them if it is possible that they made a mistake with the timing of the cams when installing the new belt, but their asnwer was no because it’s not possible to make mistakes with the tools. And they don’t see the problem since there aren’t any fault codes, like is that the only thing dealers do these days? Reading fault codes?… what do you think about this? I am clueless and not happy since i ordered €1500 of parts to upgrade my FiST, but in this state i won’t tune the engine. Thanks in advance.

Crank is retarded by one tooth for sure. Same thing happened to me on my build even though I have all the locking tools. So it is very possible to get the timing wrong on these ecoboost engines even though you have a complete set of the ford locking tools. What happened was, I locked cams (i also had the engine at top dead when i tore it apart), installed the crank holder pin turned the engint to top dead against said pin, then i installed the flywheel lock but when I installed the flywheel lock said flywheel lock pushed the crankshaft back by one tooth. I noticed this so i took the flywheel lock out turned the engine back to top dead again and installed the harmonic balancer with the balancer locking tool then torqued the crank bolt to 70 foot pounds with only the crank locking pin in place. Then i reinstalled the flywheel lock and torqued the crank bolt the rest of the way (175 foot pounds).

 

[cidsamuth]

I agree that they messed up. Strap up and go to war.

The only other thing I might try …. use your FORSCAN to do a crank relearn. I’ve never seen this procedure actually change anything noticeable, but Ford does recommend it after major service such as this.

 

[fqhrfrenzy]

I just had Ford replace the timing belt for the 150k service. It is down on power, low idle, yet it seems to run smooth just lacking. I feeling like the PCM needs to relearn but it shouldn't need to relearn just from a timing belt change. It's back at Ford for them to take a look. Power balance is normal, not misfires. I am going to have them do a manual PCM reset so it can relearn and hopefully it will solve it. If not, they are going to have to tear it apart again.

Was the original post ever resolved? I don't see a resolution posted.

 

[cidsamuth]

There’s also a “crank relearn” procedure that can be done via FORSCAN. I doubt it’s your issue, but worth considering ….

 

[TyphoonFiST]

I just had Ford replace the timing belt for the 150k service. It is down on power, low idle, yet it seems to run smooth just lacking. I feeling like the PCM needs to relearn but it shouldn't need to relearn just from a timing belt change. It's back at Ford for them to take a look. Power balance is normal, not misfires. I am going to have them do a manual PCM reset so it can relearn and hopefully it will solve it. If not, they are going to have to tear it apart again.

Was the original post ever resolved? I don't see a resolution posted.

So was your issue resolved? If so what was the conclusion and Fix?