so I worked late into the night last night (mostly because its the first time I've had time to work on the car in a while) and disassembled the car to get the water pump changed out. Everything went pretty damn smooth and the new pump is on and the new timing belt/idler pulleys as well. Timing marks were all lined up even after turning the engine by hand to double check. Start to put things all back together and finally finish. Go to start the car and... it just cranks and cranks and seems like its "catching" and bucking back after a few cranks. What the hell is going on now? Tried over and over and now the plugs are wet with gas so I'm letting them dry out for now.

I'd rather not have to take every freakin thing apart again, so throw me a bone here. Where do I even begin to look?

 

AFM plugged in?
Coil packs plugged in?
**** Hopefully you did not make the common mistake of unscrewing the AFM*** It unclips from the plug.

( you could stick a thin (LONG) rod down cylinder # 1 to check if your timing is set right)

19 teeth between intake and exhaust pulleys?

 

yes airflow meter is plugged in
coil packs plugged in
didn't remove the maf from the turbo, just left it there the whole time so I'm positive its not that.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to take off the valve cover and front covers again to figure this out but I guess thats about the easiest way to check

 

May sound stupid, but did you double check that the plug wires are pushed all the way on?

 

yeah I did check them, even double checked to make sure I put them on in the right order as well.

 

Did you unplug the coils or CAS to be safe when you were turning over the engine and forget to plug them back in?

 

nope, didn't need to so I left them as they are.

Whats the easy way to check that I'm getting spark?

 

Pull out one plug, put the wire back on, hold threaded area against ground and have someone try to start the car.

 

These kind of problems are always something that you will be kicking yourself in the *** because of, temp sensor plugged in?

 

yeah the temp sender is in. I'm thinking the crank angle sensor down by the crank pulley got moved around and isn't picking up anymore... I need to take a look tomorrow

 

if you had hte pulley loose/off you could have very well moved the trigger wheel. I did that once. never thought to check it.