I am sure this damage means I will have to replace both of these cams. I was not kidding with #1 most boneheaded thing to do. I almost want to throw up every time I think about how much money that one little turn of the key will cost me.

 

At this point I would look around for a set of used heads or a complete engine. I may be less expensive than repairing what you have.

 

Upon further thought i have come up with and idea. It appears to me that the oblong diamond shaped "bushing" only serves as a device upon which to install the cam lock or timing bar while changing the belt. The pulleys install before it and are locked onto the cam in another way. These did damage the ends of the cams a little but they will still lock onto the shaft strong enough to set timing and since the sprockets still lock as they were supposed to, and its the sprockets that handle the actual "work". I think I may be good without replacing two cams at $200-$500 each. Secondly the damage did result in the timing being set wrong so I might be lucky in my bad luck in that IF I reset it all I might not actually have bent any valves. Anyway I am just speculating. How bad would it be running a motor with one cylinder down 25-30% compression?

 

If the cam bolt still goes in and sprocket still locks down to the cam then give it a try, nothing to lose. You may possibly have an idle misfire on the low cylinder. I did work on a AVK engine with quite low compression on one cylinder and there was a slight misfire at idle that the ECU picked up. I don't know if the ECU will detect it and give a CEL on your engine. Give it a try and see....good luck

 

It seems to me that If all is ok then I have saved myself a lot of money. If all is not well I will have to spend it in the end but will only be costing myself labor for doing it all twice. Anyway, I will try setting the timing again sans intake which I removed in anticipation of head removal, and try to turn the motor over and see IF i encounter that same resistance I did before. If i find no resistance then I will do another compression test all the way around and see if my results match my first readings. If they match I will know I did not damage anything with my blunder other than the cam shaft ends. I will update in a few days.

 

I bolted the cam "guides" back on and put the timing belt back on and....the motor turned over several revs with no resistance. I now have the valve covers off, a step i had skipped before, and I checked the timing marks on the timing chain inside that link the two cams and here is what I see. The second pic from left to right shows the intake cam for cylinders 1,2, and 3 is off like one tooth. There is a, what appears to be hydraulic, lifter that moves up and down that is placed between the two cams that is making a clicking noise as it moves. Both sides appear to be very slightly out of sink at certain points in a revolution. It does not all seem to move smooth.

 

My questions are these, and since Paul is the only one participating in this I gues Ill have to send him a check when this is over.
1. Could the rough running I described early on in this be attributed to the Pic above and could that also be the cause of #1 recording poor compression?
2. Can the cam chain and tensioners be changed without removing the heads and IF they can is it still recommended that you not do it that way?

 

anyone??

 

I will ask a friend who works for Audi, I've had to replace a chain and tensioner but only done it when the head is in pieces.
You could try the compression test again and see what you have ........without the cam lock in place ........

 

My friendly Audi expert took a look at your pics and there is definitely something wrong with the timing settings. If the timing is off then you will have a rough running engine. He recommends taking a look at the tensioner as well as the chain. Its a few years since I had the pleasure of tearing into a 2.8 but i do remember that I replaced both chains and tensioners when I rebuilt the heads after an idler pulley broke up.
Did you run the compression test again ?