I put a 1988 engine into a 1989 and mis-positioned the flex plate. More on that below; two related questions 1st:

1. The CPS sensor reads what? In > 1 message here, there are comments about the CPS reading the tone ring and firing after it sees the place on the ring where a hole is missing. Is that correct?

2. Pins are for? The picture you see in Bentley, Haynes, here, elsewhere references the alignment of the "two pins" to (2 & 4 O'clock, crank at TDC, rotor pointed to cyl_1). Do these pins have any purpose other than alignment eg. balance, timing? I have flex plates and flywheels missing one or both pins.

2a. I have a pre- tone ring flywheel with 2 pins. Are they aligned to 2 & 4 O'clock for balance reasons?


Some comments and a cautionary note about flex-plate alignment.

I pulled a flex plate off the shelf to install on the pre-CPS 1988 engine. Search here was down and I thought I remembered how to align the plate; and I used the picture in the manual. I was wrong. Comments for those doing this the 1st time.

a. The ubiquitous picture you see shows the pins at 2 & 4 O'clock. The pins are on the block side of the plates that I have.

b. It also shows an arrow pointing to 3 O'clock. This arrow is imaginary - intended to show a level-line across the plate. There is an etched arrow on some plates but it is on the block side and it needs to be pointed towards the CPS bracket.

c. One message here has the comment that the "no hole" area on the tone ring needs to pointed up at the CPS bracket. That's wrong, at least for LH 2.4. The "no hole" space should be around the bottom of the starter hole.

For all Bentley's thoroughness, I'd think they'd have included the above info - especially the note about the alignment of the etched arrow. The manual says "Some plates have an arrow" and shows you a picture with an arrow at 3 O'clock.
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240 drivers / parts cars - JH, Ohio