"E. Meyer" <e.meyer@ieee.org> wrote in message news:<BB541AEC.8F7A%e.meyer@ieee.org>...
> I disagree based on personal experience. Many cars will run if the belt is
> off by one tooth, My VW rabbit slipped one tooth on the belt (a little rock
> got under it). It ran smoothly, but had no power and overheated easily
> until the belt was realigned. The symptoms were almost exactly what he
> describes.

...snip..

I'll second that. I replaced the timing belt in my '89 civic. I lined
up the cam and crank sprockets and put the belt in place. I was paying
attention to setting the tension of the belt, and didn't realize that
I was putting the crank sprocket 1 tooth ahead of the cam in doing so.
This retarded the mechanical timing -- valvetrain timing retarded with
reference to the crankshaft timing. This caused extremely poor power
below 3000 rpm. Around 3000 RPM, things picked up -- almost normal
power. Took it back apart, re-set mechanical timing, engine works
properly -- lesson learned.

If this is the case with the OP's car, he will need to adjust the
crank sprocket 1 tooth clockwise to fix. And double-triple check the
alignment marks in accordance to the repair manual!
A timing belt that is one tooth out will not bang up your valves or
cause your engine to immediately melt down. It will just operate VERY
poorly. Just take it all apart and re-check.

Hope this helps!
k