Since this seems to be a common question, I figured I'd take some pics of the timing marks as I changed my belt. The belt has arrows that tell you which side goes forward. The dotted line on the belt goes on the left cam gear mark. (when looking at the front of the motor) The other two marks should line up with the marks on the crank and remaining cam gear. There are also marks on the timing cover plate, above each cam. These will be a hair off. That's normal. If it looks like this when you're done, you'll be alright. At proper tension, you should be able to twist the belt almost 90 degrees between the right cam and the crank gear. At that point, or close to it, it should start getting harder to twist.

(Feel free to move this to the tech tips or general info section.)

 

Good post... Maybe it should be stickied...

 

yeah, someone should get on that .

 

Oh yeah, while you're doing the T-belt, you should always change the waterpump and tensioner pulley while you're in there. Some people recommend changing the tensioner spring bolt and cam & crank seals, too, but mine looked fine so I just did the pulley and waterpump. This car still has yet to drip a drop of oil. When it hits 120K, I'll dig a little deeper and probably do the seals. I didn't think a car with only 64K on it needed seals yet. It had been stored more than driven, obviously.