kamtra

95 has a newer head design and can cause valves smashing into pistons if belt breaks. My source could be wrong but please make sure.

92Lex...please tell me how you set the belt. My car did the same thing and I've been adjusting my cams one tooth 5 or 6 times now with no good results. It's such a pain in the !Removed! to take the timing belt tensioner off every time! But same thing- no marks on the belt and i'm just guessing the crank on "0" is correct- marks behind cams look fishy- i can't tell which one of the cams is off. Any way to check?

Your research was correct. The 95 was first year of interference due to a new head design. 90-94 are safe. Tis why i had no qualms about changing my own belt. So, for everyone: 90-94 non-interference. 95 and up will smash your valves into your pistons if your belt breaks. Good luck!

The timing belt in the ls400 is fairly well covered up and i can't imagine power steering fluid making it's way in there. 95% of the time the power steering fluid is leaking into the intake manifold. You can see this when you turn on the car and see a puff of blue smoke coming from the tailpipes. The pump has a valve on the bottom of it that you really can't see. It's called the idle up valve and it tends to have a seal go bad causing ps fluid to crawl up the vacuum line and into your intake. It's the very small black hose that you see connecting to your big black intake plumming between the intake and the air filter/MAS unit. It actually attaches to a small hose about the diamter of a nickel. I was able to unscrew my whole idle up valve from the pump and thread a bolt into the whole without a lot of effort. Steering feels the same to me and no leaking. I did not have to take the pump off to do it. Just crawled uncomfortably under the car and unscrewed it, took it to ACE Hardware and found a metric bolt of the same threads, a little plumbers tape and it worked. Been on for 20,000 miles. Be sure to also block the hole where the vacuum hose used to attach. Otherwise you hear loud wistle and weird engine activity.

90-94 are non interference. 95 introduced a new head that due to design will cause valves bashing into piston. From then on (95) all LS400 are interference engines.

the same thing is happening to me now. I changed my waterpump- put the same timing belt back on. Ran fine for an hour. Then, the second time i started it up it runs like it has 10 hp- top speed eventually 25mph and smelling like gas. I took it to dealer, they said timing was off. I took it all down again only to find that the timing is not off- even adjusted the cams up and down a couple of times to see if that helps. When i do that the car doesn't run. I put the belt back on the way it's supposed to be and the car starts- just has no power. I'm stuck. help! 1990ls