ccrelan wrote: "the 190e/W201 really was the first Benz built to a price point" The 190e was the first car by Mercedes to use the multi-link rear suspension that they have been using ever since!
Yup, and their cars have been plagued with problems and falling apart in 10 years or less ever since.
That was the beginning of the crumbling wiring harness era, the 190's were built cheap so the struggling masses could afford the tri pointed star, one of my buds at the Mercedes store told me 190's were the worst maintained version because those people had just stretched themselves to the limit so when you buy one used it just hasn't been maintained and a Mercedes loves its routine maintenance.
There was a massive recall in the late 1980's to replace nearly the entire EVAP system for hose etc failures, all kinds of stuff. Like I've said twice already I'd grab what I could get back then run like hell.
MailmAn wrote:Kendall_Jones wrote: With all that top end work done, I'd do a compression & leak down before throwing any more parts on it. Does the MB crankcase have the same vacuum on it like the old BMWs? Pull the dipstick & idle drops and runs erratic...The shop did a compression and leak-down test on the engine when they pulled the head before any work was done on the engine. He said the bottom end on the car was solid and doesn't need any work. It has good compression and the oil rings are sealing properly and there is no blow-by. I don't think that is the issue here right now. The mechanic said he wouldn't have recommended redoing the head on the engine and trying to fix it if the bottom end wasn't good. I've never heard of an engine running like crap if you pull the oil dipstick out. My car certainly doesn't do that. I've pulled the dipstick before when it is running and it doesn't change anything.
I recommended doing this after the fact (compression / leak down) to verify that everything was OK engine wise. I see the compression was done but you really need a leak down done to fully prove that its rings. If the cam timing is off then it could also give you low compression (the valves would overlab & loose compression).
You really don't even need a leak down gauge - you can use a compression tester adapter. Just get the cylinder to TDC (where both valves are closed) and put 100 psi on it. Listen for the hiss - if air comes out the oil fill its pistons, out the intake or exhaust its the valves. You're good mechanic should know this. Also also running it for a long time with the timing off may have burned the exhaust valves (and fried the cat).
Kenny_McCormic wrote:ccrelan wrote: "the 190e/W201 really was the first Benz built to a price point" The 190e was the first car by Mercedes to use the multi-link rear suspension that they have been using ever since!Yup, and their cars have been plagued with problems and falling apart in 10 years or less ever since.
So newer benz's are falling apart because the multi link rear suspensions? W201 cars do not have harness issues like w124s.
Here is some good info about these cars:
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-mercedes-190e-das-beste-oder-baby/
In reply to ccrelan:
No, but that's a pretty good marker for when the quality went to E36 M3, though you seem to think the opposite. Walk through the junkyard and look at the W124s and W140s compared to the W123s and W126s. The later cars fall apart like an old Cadillac, the 123s and 126s are all in better shape than their replacements.
Spinout007 wrote: I get there and this "mechanic" starts in on me. He grabs the BIGGEST pair of channel locks I've seen and grabs the exhaust with em and starts squeezing the tips of the handle. "see it's rotten, it needs to be replaced". I disagreed with him, and told him anyone can crush a pipe with that "wrench". to prove the point I had my 4'9" ex give it a little squeeze which freaked her out a bit, wigged grandma out when I got the little boy from the lobby and had him do the same. A little background on me at this time, I was 17, spent 5 evenings a week in the gym, 3 nights a week in martial arts classes, and had weight lifting in school, and played baseball and football. My weight fluctuated between 150 and 165, and my goal was to bench twice my weight. Got damn close too. Anyway. After I held the kid up and got him to give the pipe a squeeze, granted the kid had to use both hands but he was able to flex it. The "mechanic" made the comment "SEE?!?! it's so rotten a kid can crush it. So I reached up and tried to crush it by hand. I couldn't dent it. So I reached up and hung my body weight off it, it didn't budge. I told him to take the car off the lift, he wasn't going to touch it, took grandma's car to the parts store, then to the base "hobby shop" and took care of it for her. The lady with the kid left right behind us. Make a bit more sense now?
Yes. Interesting story. I'm glad you let this cob-shop mechanic have it right there and his lying cost him customers. Awesome... I just wish there were more people like you holding these con-artists accountable, but there's a sucker born every day who will listen to these guys and spend thousands more on their car than they need to due to these "mechanics" trying to pad their commission checks by replacing parts that don't need replacing.
volvoclearinghouse wrote: By the way, I hope you've been cured of your Mercedes infatuation. I know I'll never touch the 3-starred make ever again. I've run through enough electrical, vacuum, and other maddening crap with the 240Ds, 300Ds, and R107 chassis cars to make me swear off Germans forever. I love my 1960's Volvos. Fix them with a hammer.
Well, not really... It was not the car's fault that this "mechanic" is a lying, cheating, @$$hole. If I spent $3,000 at a GOOD shop and had them yank the engine and do a complete rebuild on it, I would have a car that would be running as good as new now and would last me another 100,000 miles or more. YOU were the one who told me that this car was one of the last "Bank Vault Benz's". I know after that you added, "that being said, electrical and vacuum problems will still haunt you in your sleep". But this is NEITHER of those issues. This is a mechanical problem that this mechanic should have seem coming given the history and mileage of the car. If you have a 1980's ANY friggen car with over 170,000 miles, why would you not check the bottom end and even if the compression was "okay", rebuild it anyways if the reading was more than 20-30psi below spec? That should still indicate that it has lost same compression over the years and could be freshened up - even if you only install new rings and hone the block versus doing a total rebuild. That way you KNOW it will be good to go for some time now.
The other thing I was thinking of after the fact was the exhaust that he chopped off my car and then cobbled up a new one. I distinctly remember when I picked up my car that he showed me the inside of the resonator that he cut off my car and it was NASTY inside. It looked like a mess of carbon deposits and used rear-axle gear oil coating the whole inside of the resonator. So, what should that tell you? That the rings were shot in the engine the whole time and I was getting lots of oil blow-by out of my exhaust over the years. This guy should have put two-and-two together at that point. I've seen some old, rotten, falling apart exhausts before, but I've never seen a muffler or exhaust pipes coated full of oil on a good running engine. Hell, my truck with almost 300,000 miles on it has an 8-10 year old exhaust on it that the inside is bone-dry on! I should have called him on it then and asked why he didn't at least hone the block and put new rings in if there was that much oil in the resonator. Well, hindsight is 20/20, right? I'm just kicking myself for not noticing the (now) obvious and I never should have paid the bill in the first place. I just REALLY needed my car back for work and I was hoping for the best - which I can tell is all the shop was hoping for as well. They rolled the dice and gambled on the repairs they did fixing my car well enough to get me by on until the statute of limitations ran out on it at least... and they lost.
There is some monetarily threshold that can result in jail time. Don't know what it is in your state and it also has a lot to do with the judge and any previous history.
Kenny- have you owned a w124 or w140? Driving a w123 and w124 back to back is like going from a rotary phone to a iPhone. The w201 cars were designed in the late 70s so you are way off base about the quality going downhill. The w210 and w202 cars are widely considered when Benz jumped the shark so to speak. They cheapened things after the introduction of Lexus and Infiniti which was 1990. Last year of the 190e was 1993.
Okay, if for nothing other than comedic value here, I am going to post up the conversation I had with the shop owner this week. I called up Capitol Mechanics on Monday, October 20, and spoke with the owner about the repairs done to my car. I told him that, after the last two times that I had brought the car back to him and it still wasn't running right, I decided to take it somewhere else to get another opinion on it and have them check it out. I told him that the first thing they checked was the compression and that there was very low compression in the engine (the highest cylinder was only around 50 psi). I said that I know I told you on several occasions to check the compression on the engine before pulling the heads and sending them to the machine shop. His response to that was,
"Well, yeah, but I pretty sure that we done that!"I told him that there was no way that he could have checked the compression and it was fine before if we just checked it and it is that low now. I told him that we also squirted some oil into the top of the cylinders and took the readings again and the compression jumped right up to 120-125 psi across the board. I told him that means that the rings are bad in the engine. His response was:
"Uhhhh... No, no... I don't believe that. I just don't. Well, tell me, how did you lose the compression in the engine that fast? Think about it logically, okay. Your engine ran fine before and then all of a sudden you lose power in the engine? It makes no sense. How could the bottom end all of a sudden just go bad like that?"
I told him that the only thing I can conclude from the compression test is that the compression was bad in the engine in the first place, you never checked it, and you did all of these repairs on an engine that needed to be completely rebuilt. He quickly responded,
"No, no! That is not the right statement to make! You assume we didn't do the tests, but we did."However, he agreed that if this was the case that it doesn't make any sense that the compression is so low on the engine now.
"How did the rings go bad in a couple of days after the repairs were done and that is how you lost the power in your engine? It just doesn't make any sense. There HAS to be something else wrong with the engine besides that. It just has to. Well, look, let me talk to my guys here and see what they suggest, but just think about this for a minute, okay. You were driving the car before and everything was kind of fine, it just leaked a lot of oil and this and that, but the thing is, okay, your car had power before. How suddenly then did the rings just go bad on the engine in a matter of what... a week? Do you have any explanations to that, because I certainly don't have any explanations to that."
After that, I brought up how we also found that the engine timing was way off and the timing mark wasn't even showing up in the window on the crank pulley/harmonic balancer. He then asked me what the name of the shop is that I took it to. So, in full disclosure, I told him the name of the shop in Schenectady that I took it to who helped me out diagnosing the engine. He then said,
"Okay, well I'm going to want to verify all this information for myself. If what you are telling me is the case, then I'm going to have to take care of it. What else do you want me to do at this point? Because if what this other shop is telling you proves to be correct, which I don't BELIEVE it is, then I want to have the opportunity to fix the mistakes that were made. Because, okay, this is THE FIRST TIME I have EVER heard that the guy who worked on your car EVER did anything wrong.The guy who worked on your car is the MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE mechanic on Mercedes cars out of ANYONE I know, besides maybe myself. And you are trying to tell me that a mechanic who rebuilds the most complicated modern engines ever produced, engines with two or sometimes three or more timing chains or belts, doesn't know how to set the timing properly on your engine? You have a relatively simple engine to work on and it is a very straightforward procedure to set the timing on it, so that just doesn't make any sense to me at all that the timing could be off on your car even a little bit, let alone enough so that this other guy can't even see the timing mark on the engine.
None of what you are telling me seems to fit, okay. Now, now, I didn't do any of the work on your car myself, nor did I supervise the guys while they were working on it, obviously, so I definitely want to find out what is going on with your car for myself. Let me talk to my guys and try to see what is going on. Because I gave them enough time to work on your car and I made sure that they had full instructions on what to do. So, if there is a chance that they possibly screwed up, I will stand behind the repairs and make it right, okay?"
However, he went on to seemingly scold me for having the audacity to take my car to another shop! I couldn't believe what I was hearing from this guy:
"Now, I just wish you had told me about this earlier and brought the car back to me in the first place instead of going around to different shops to get different opinions on your car as now you are just making a mess of things as now I don't know if the problems you are experiencing with your car are a result of something that another shop did to make your car not run right. I mean, if you take your car to 10 different shops, you are going to get 10 different opinions on what is wrong with it, right or wrong? So, I just want to make sure that every statement that you just made can be verified and has an explanation. Because several things that you just told me don't make any sense to me at all. I really need to have the car here to check it out for myself to try to make sense of everything that you are telling me."
I then asked him what if I take it to yet another shop, or possibly even to Keeler Mercedes, the local Mercedes Benz Dealer, and have them run the same tests to verify all of this and print it up on an invoice that I can show to him to prove that multiple shops all agree on the current condition of the engine? He said:
"No, no! That is not good enough! That is just water over the dam at that point. I NEED to have the car here to check it out for myself! Because otherwise you know what MY GUYS are gonna say? That someone else was working on it, THEY screwed it up, we did it right, and they did something wrong, and that is basically all that is going to happen, okay?"Well, I was kind of surprised at his moment of honesty there, basically admitting that even if I bring him back the car, he is going to claim that they didn't do anything wrong, it was someone else's fault, and they won't end up standing behind their work. He then continued on scolding me like a little child, saying:
"You see, you are actually creating more problems for yourself by doing all of this. By going around to all of these different shops, you now don't have one place singularly responsible for all the repairs. Now, I have NEVER backed out of a job before. I asked you to bring the car back to me and let me check it out, and instead you brought it to another shop. Now YOU are putting me in a position where I am between a rock and a hard place, okay? I still want to try and help you out and if I can verify the claims that you made, I'm going to make sure that I take care of it. But you are NOT HELPING ME by going around to all of these different shops, that is what I am saying."I started thinking at this point, "What, are you worried that word is going to get out that you are a horrible shop when people hear of what you did to my car to mess it all up?" Then he tells me,
"You see, any mechanic is going to blame another mechanic for whatever is wrong with your car now, that is just how it works in this profession."I couldn't help but think, "Well, just because that is what YOU might do doesn't mean that EVERY shop out there is dishonest and will blame everyone else for their problems instead of owning up to what they did." Then he follows that statement up with another doozy:
"This is all just pure politics is what it is! This has nothing at all to do with anything mechanically wrong with your engine."Oh, really now?
Then, I pressed him further about his guys having never checked the compression on my engine prior to doing any work on it. I asked him, if he was so certain that they checked it, does he have a copy of the test results from the mechanic to show me what the numbers were on it before? His response was:
"Well, look, my guy saw the cylinders when he took the head off of the engine. He told me that there was not a score mark on them and that they were all nice and smooth and shiny and looked good. So, that is how he knew that the bottom end of your engine was good."So, he just admitted that the ONLY thing his "mechanic" did was a visual inspection of the block while it was in the car. Then he goes to me:
"Look, from a mechanic's point of view, I would probably have been better off telling you to rebuild the whole engine and do anything and everything to that engine in order to make as much money as we could on the job. But we never done that. The thing is, it didn't need to be done as the bottom end of your car was FINE. Everything that we did to your car was done to try to SAVE YOU MONEY! Who told you that your bottom end was good and it was worthwhile to have the head rebuilt and you didn't need a complete engine rebuild? We did that for you to try to save you money. I mean, really, I'm not out here just looking to scam people and take their money."
The conversation finally wrapped up with him asking me yet again to just bring him the car back so he can check it out and verify everything that I had told him. I tried to procrastinate though by saying that I didn't want to drive the car over as it was running so poorly. I told him that I left the car at the shop and I am currently driving another rental car. He asked me if I had AAA, which I do, but unfortunately with all of the car problems I've been having this year, I am out of tows on my account until next year. He then said he would look into getting it towed over at his expense so he could look at it, however he put a stipulation on it. He told me basically that if he has it towed over to his shop and his guys find that they screwed up my car, then he will pay for the tow. But, if they find that someone else was working on the engine and they screwed it up, then I will have to pay for the tow. So, of course then they will deny any wrong doing once they get my car and try to stick me with an expensive tow bill. Yeah, that seems fair... Then he wrapped up by adding:
"You know, I've just been going over and over everything in my head and the ONLY thing I can think of that would cause the engine to go bad and lose all the compression that fast is if someone put sugar in your gas tank, and I don't know if you have any enemies who would do something like that to you. Otherwise, I just can't think of anything else that would destroy an engine that fast. Under normal circumstances, what you are telling me just doesn't happen like that. There must be a reason WHY you are having all of these problems and why did these things just suddenly go bad. But pointing fingers right now is not going to solve anything. Just let me have the car back so I can try to figure out what we are dealing with here, okay?"
This guy is just unbelievable... I'm thinking at this point, my ONLY option is to take him to court. He basically said it himself in so many words that he is going to blame the problems with my car on someone else, not take responsibility for what his guys did, and not stand behind his repairs. He will then probably end up charging me even MORE money to end up rebuilding my whole engine, which he should have done in the first place. Right or wrong?
I still disagree with your assertion that the compression had to be bad before.
Driving a car with bad timing, a bad tune, etc., can burn pistons, which will show up as E36 M3ty compression. I think you damaged it by continuing to drive it.
I would say give him the chance to fix it and make it right. If he puts the blame out there on someone/something else then sue him. AFTER paying for the tow and getting your car back into your possession.
Have you contacted an attorney?
I'd also search for the bbb database and see if they are accredited. I'm sure they have a website with a review section. Maybe contact a few local newspapers as well.
They've basically declared war on your wallet and won the first battle. Time to fire back.
I have a 85 190 that I'm parting out, runs great and you can have the engine If you want. I'm in Ohio but if it solves your issue that would be great.
W201 cars were still quality cars, long before bio-degrading harnesses rusting strut towers or chronic rack issues. Most of the cars in the junkyards have 150k+ and they still are full of useable parts. Interiors didn't wear out and they didn't really rust, even up here where everything rusts. They are easy to work on and parts are generally pretty reasonably priced. They make great DD.
DILYSI Dave wrote: I still disagree with your assertion that the compression had to be bad before. Driving a car with bad timing, a bad tune, etc., can burn pistons, which will show up as E36 M3ty compression. I think you damaged it by continuing to drive it.
Well, here's the thing then... if what you are saying WAS the case, then that is STILL HIS FAULT! If my car had good compression before and he messed up the timing or fuel mixture on it and then gave me the car back, then he still f#cked it up on me. Plus, I brought him the car back TWICE within 3 weeks after he initially "completed" the repairs and I paid his exorbitant bill and told him it was still not running right. Then you know what he did? He fiddled with the Idle Air Control (IAC) Valve and the mixture and told me to drive it a few hundred miles and run a couple of tanks of fresh gas through the engine. So, if he f#cked something up in the engine, didn't recognize it or properly troubleshoot it, and then told me to drive it 500+ miles and then report back to me how it's running after that, then that is his fault if his directions ended up cooking my engine. One way or another, he f#cked up my car and should be held responsible as far as I'm concerned.
That's right, he did tell you to drive the car more. If by following his instructions you damaged the car, well, that's his fault.
I've heard his excuse countless times "Well, if another mechanic was working on it, they probably screwed it up". As long as all the other shop did was run some test on it, though, and they will attest to that fact, he doesn't have a leg to stand on. You didn't go to "ten" different shops. You went to one other place and had some tests done. That's all.
Personally, I think the bad valve timing is causing the lack of compression and vacuum and maybe fixing that will fix the engine. Give him one more shot, and make sure you personally witness whatever tests he does. If there is now internal damage, and it was caused by the bad timing and his instructions for you to keep driving it, tell him he owes you a bottom end rebuild, or a good used engine. If he refuses, take your car and your keys, and tell him you'll see him in court.
Also, sugar in the gas tank is an urban myth. All it does is settle to the bottom of the tank and sit there. He's B-Sing you with that.
volvoclearinghouse wrote: Personally, I think the bad valve timing is causing the lack of compression and vacuum and maybe fixing that will fix the engine.
Come on, VolvoClearingHouse (Real Name Redacted to Protect Your Identity), I thought you were SUPPOSED to be a mechanical engineer? Now I have to educate you as well on the operation of an internal combustion engine? You know, I had been thinking about this a lot since so many people on the forums seem to believe that the cam timing would have anything at all to do with the compression readings taken on the engine. I had originally believed this myself, but the more I thought about it, the more it just didn't make any sense to me at all. Let me prove this by reviewing how a 4-cycle internal combustion engine works.
Here is a typical animation showing the different cycles or strokes of an engine (from Wikipedia):
Notice anything about it? Yes, besides that this is assuming that everything is happening in perfect timing on an engine that is running right, but at the top of the compression stroke (just before the spark plug fires and starts the power stroke), BOTH of the intake and exhaust valves are completely closed! So, unless a valve spring is broken and a valve is sticking open, it is impossible for the cam timing to have any effect at all on the compression reading of the engine. The compression of the engine is only the ratio that the piston reduces the overall volume of the intake air charge prior to the spark which ignites the air-fuel mixture. If the cam were opening a valve at anytime during the compression stroke, it would have to be set 180 degrees off from where it should be and the engine wouldn't run at all! The amount of cam timing that we are talking about here is only around 10-20 degrees off, which will make it run sh1tty, but shouldn't cause any major engine problems like you are suggesting.
Worst case scenario, the exhaust valve is starting to open prior to BDC of the power stroke and the intake valve is opening prior to TDC of the intake stroke, which will cause the engine to make no power (which it is currently doing) as you are losing some of the power from the power stroke as well as preventing the engine from pulling in the optimum intake air charge during the intake stroke, which will affect the power generated during combustion. However, the compression ratio of the engine should remain unchanged regardless of the cam timing unless the cam was installed 180 degrees backwards.
You can also review these articles that explain more about engine timing and ignition timing and how it affects the performance of your engine:
http://www.auto-ware.com/combust_bytes/valvetiming.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignition_timing
EDIT - Another good read on engine timing and how it affects engine performance:
The Impact of Variable Valve Actuation on Engine Performance and Emissions
volvoclearinghouse wrote: Give him one more shot, and make sure you personally witness whatever tests he does. If there is now internal damage, and it was caused by the bad timing and his instructions for you to keep driving it, tell him he owes you a bottom end rebuild, or a good used engine. If he refuses, take your car and your keys, and tell him you'll see him in court.
Well, I already gave him 2 chances to fix it and he squandered them IMO by not fixing the underlying cause of these problems. What makes me think that the third time is the charm now? I know I have given him more information to check on now, but he should have checked these things himself earlier. I even told him on multiple occasions, over the phone and in person, to check the timing on my engine and check the compression since it still wasn't running right. He shrugged it off every time telling me that he knew the compression and timing were spot on and he wasn't going to waste the time checking over things that he knows are right. He doesn't want to admit that he is wrong and he is unwilling to go over and double-check his work even after a customer has come back repeatedly complaining about work he has done on their car because he is worried that they may find out that his guys screwed up. What else do I need to say about it?
Static Compression Ratio (SCR) is different from Dynamic Compression Ratio (DCR). Cam timing affects only DCR. As an example, a low compression engine (say, 8:1) will run like crap with a rumpity cam, because the big cam will reduce the DCR. It's also why a high compression engine can run on relatively low octane fuel, if it has a big cam. The DCR is lowered.
Aside from the fact that cam timing does affect DCR, I'm recalling now that the 2nd mech shot some oil into the cylinder and that improved the compression reading. This would make me think it is not cam timing, but worn rings. (It would also rule out a hole in the piston!)
volvoclearinghouse wrote: Static Compression Ratio (SCR) is different from Dynamic Compression Ratio (DCR). Cam timing affects only DCR. As an example, a low compression engine (say, 8:1) will run like crap with a rumpity cam, because the big cam will reduce the DCR. It's also why a high compression engine can run on relatively low octane fuel, if it has a big cam. The DCR is lowered.
True, but we are not talking about switching cams with different durations and lifts and offsets here (and also assuming that each different cam is installed properly). We are talking about the same cam either installed properly with the timing marks lined up right vs not installed properly and the timing chain is installed a tooth or two off so the cam is slightly out of time with the engine. Either way, this shouldn't affect the compression of the engine while doing a compression check like we did.
I'm not a professional mechanic and I didn't stay in a holiday inn last night. But, while your basic premise is right, your conclusion is a little off. VCH is correct, incorrect cam timing will have a detrimental effect on compression and vacuum especially on a DOHC engine. What you are forgetting is that when you have an additional camshaft to account for those camshafts have to be in time in relation to each other as well as the crankshaft. So it's very possible due to sloppy assembly that one cam can be advanced and the other retarded which would cause the exhaust and/or intake valves to be just slightly open when the should be closed at TDC. This effect would be just like having a really bad valve adjustment that never allows a valve to completely close (something really easy to do on a Small Block Chevy as I found out), and it wouldn't have to be a lot off, as little as 5 degrees will cause a problem, and more could cause valve-piston contact in an interference engine. I agree that you should give him one more shot at it albeit at no cost to you, he can't screw it up any worse than it already is. And if he can't get it right, let him have it with both barrels.
Come to think of it, just re-read the first post in the thread, again not sure about benz engines, but I wonder if the valve lash was adjusted properly? Worn rings could definitely be a culprit too..
FWIW, I have seen a couple of engines (pushrod V6 3.3 and 3.8 Chrysler) setting persistent misfire codes that passed both the leakdown and static compression tests, everything else worked fine (swapped coils, plugs, injectors with no change, no vacuum leaks etc). On the offending cylinder, if the compression tester were left in and the engine started lo and behold the compression was below spec. First time I saw this, I said 'that ain't possible', the tester was moved to the next cylinder (non misfiring) in my presence and damn if it didn't have normal compression. Both engines turned out to have bottom end (ring sealing) problems. Weird. Only thing I can think of was low ring tension or maybe sticking in the lands, wouldn't show until the engine was turning at least idle RPM. This doesn't help the OP in the least I know, I just thought it was interesting.
It's a common trick to advance cam timing to pick up a little DCR in an engine and gain low end torque. Ford actually retarded cam timing in the 70's as a smog trick to lose DCR and reduce NoX emissions (leaving a bunch of power and torque on the table in the process). When de-smogging a 70's Ford engine, the cheapest HP/$ is installing a "straight up" timing chain.
My X1/9's both benefited from a 1 tooth change (retarded, at the cam) in the cam timing. Really woke them up over about 5k RPM. It must have been an emissions thing from the factory.
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