Interference vs non-interference engines

[GeoffM]

A few teeth broken is different.from a.broken belt.

[Jarnutt]

Not to bring this thread back from the dead, but the internet is FULL of bad answers to this question, and it seems those that dont know shit are the most confident about what they know.

My crank pulley bolt let go at some point in the last 24 hours (H22A1), and the KEY for the crank slid off the end of the crank while I was driving home from work, it was barely hanging on the end of the pulley. The car just flat ass died, no RPMS, no jolt, no bang, while cruising at roughly 2000 RPM in 5th. I had a friend help take it back to our shop, pulled the valve cover, and it had all symptoms of a bad timing belt, fast cranking, cams not turning while cranking, so upon further inspection, I noticed the KEY and BOLT missing from the pulley. After about an hour of lining things back up and puting the Key back in, the car starts and runs fine.

Turns out, if you do google searches on this outside the Forum, people have "evidence" for both cases,granted, I havent driven the car due to the fact that I have to somehow come up with a new bolt, but, I started it, let it idle, and revved it a few times, its smooth and quiet as normal. Seems those that KNOW FOR A FACT that its an interference motor, tend to know someone who knows someone who knew a guy that it happened to, or it broke when they had their foot into it hard, and those like me, that had it drop off at LOW RPM, well we are ALL just lucky i guess, every last one of us, we should all buy lottery tickets it seems. I dont think luck has anything to do with it, I honestly think these motors just dont have contact on the primary cam lobes with stock pistons and cams, there isnt really any other explanation. Mine was IN GEAR, DRIVING, and the belt essentially froze the valve timing in place while the motor kept on spinning, I then used the cam gears to roll the valve timing to match the crank so i could put the key back in, at no point did the pistons contact the valves while rolling the motor by hand, and now it runs fine.

Granted the true test will be if I still have my 225's across the compression test, but I have a gut feeling, I do.

*As of this afternoon, new key, new pulley bolt, car is back to normal. Just for the record, with the valves all the way open, intake OR exhaust, the piston makes NO CONTACT. I rolled the motor 3 times with either valve open, just to check. So unless the cam or pistons are different from an H22A1 to any other H block, excluding the type S pistons or cams, that's the deal, no interference. No bullshit, no arguing. If you've bent valves with a broken belt it was either due to excessive carbon buildup on your pistons, a bad adjustment on your valve lash, valve to valve contact, or you were on the secondary lobe when it busted.