Cam timing the hard way!?!?!
 

Had a cam timing adjuster go bad, left head. Installed new one. Reinstalled the timing belt per Bently, this belt only has 8000 miles on it, I did it last July. Now its running like poop, throwing a p0341, right head cam sensor and a bunch of misfires. Swapped the Halls and it is still throwing a p0341, so it has to do with the RIGHT head. The bently says that there are 16 links on the right head between the timing marks and only 15 links on the left head, left is the one I worked on. Is this correct?

also

I rechecked the belt and found that the flat side on the cam where the diamond shaped washer with the holes in it for the cam alignment tool is no longer flat. Don't know how this happend, but I guess that I was not paying attention after I poped off the cam sprocket and did not have the retaining bolt tight enough when I snugged it down, anyway if F'ed up sooooo the cam tool is almost useless to get the left cams back in time. I can get them close, but not perfect.

I noticed that the timing marks on the left head cams do line up with the arrows on the caps, but..... the engine is not on tdc when they are lined up.

My question is, with the crank at TDC, I have the locking tool in place, do the cam timing marks line up with the arrows on the caps or are they offset? Any of you 4.2 guys have your valve cover off for a belt that could look for me.

I would assume that the cams timing marks and the crank TDC position should match, but the bently really does not say that I could find.

If the marks all line up with the engine at TDC, I can get this thing back together, but I need to have some one look who has their 4.2 apart.

I dont know for sure, but they probably wont line up, mostly because the motor has
 

variable valve timing. There should be a timing lsetting on the cam sprockets themselves somewhere. We used to have to do this with the VANOS gears at BMW, and when you tightened them down, you could see the cams fall into their TDC setting. I also heard while doing my 1.8t belt (not sure if this applies) that timing can be affected up to 6 degrees, and still not have interference. Usually you can be a tooth or 2 off on the belt and still be ok. Im not sure if this is an interference motor, but knowing Audi, it probably is. Keep us posted if you figure this out