So I started changing my cam seals today, and came to a fork in the road...do I take the timing belt off? or leave it on and just remove the tension? or leave it on and don't touch the tension? I guess the DSMer in me led me down the path of most-half-assed-ness, so I didn't take the tension off. I've come to learn this is a bad idea on 95-96 cars, as the CAS is directly behind the intake cam gear, and apparently very fragile.

While I was manuevering the intake cam gear back into position, I (well my dad actually but I'm not going to blame him for trying to help) the CAS got in the way and some bits of plastic broke off. Now when I start the car, it immediately dies, regardless of throttle input.

I'm posting this because I'm not sure if its because I messed up the timing also, or just the CAS being borked is causing it not to run. I checked the timing at the cam gears, dowel pins up and marks aligned. I can't find the lower timing marks though. So I just pulled plug #1 and put a socket extension in there to see when its at TDC. At TDC the cam sprockets line up, so my timing is correct, right?

So does anyone have a 1g cas for me? I think the CAS swap sounds easier than removing the timing belt still...lol, thanks for any help.