Nissan Repair: 93 Altima GXE wont start after engine repairs, blown head gasket, interference engine

Question
Symptoms indicated a blown head gasket or cracked head. Disassembly included head/intake as a assembly, and both upper and lower timing covers and relevant items. Before disassembly the car would start and run but water would gush, like a geyser out of the radiator with the cap off, even cold. A quick compression check on #1 read 50#, the others weren't checked. The car was driven into the garage and disassembled. We have difficulity getting all the timing marks to line up at the same time, so after many revolutions of the engine we decided to remove the lower front cover to set all the timing marks correctly. The head gasket was defective showing leakage from the water port between 2-3 and 3-4. Also it looks a little burnt on the cylinder ring of the gasket between 2-3 and 3-4. During assembly we verified several times that all the timing marks were aligned properly. (we didn't want to pull that front cover again). After assemly was complete a compression check on all four show 60#. A wet check shows 70# on all four. Fuel pressure is fine, used a noid light:injectors are firing. Timing light says ok (20BTDC). New cap, rotor, and wires before repair. The engine turns fine, sounds normal, but will not start or even sound like it hitting. We're concerned that the cams are not right. For instance, if you picture a revolution of the crank as a clock, then on the compression upstroke the intake values are not fully closed until about 10:00. It's evident that, sometime in the past, the engine has beenworked on. We're concerned about moving the cams on the chain away from the timing marks because of a possible piston-value hit. Is that a possiblity or is the head a collision-free head? Hope you can help, we've stumped two pretty good mechanics.

Answer
Don,

It is an interference engine and from what you say the cam timing is off from the crank.  I would remove the timing cover and check to see where the marks are.  Go to nissanusa.com and ddownload the .pdf for the timing chain installation.  If someone has been into the engine before the gears could have been installed incorrectly and since you did the job correctly you did not notice that they had compensated for a screwup.  So, remove the cover and the gears and follow the Nissan installation and you should be fine.  It sounds like the headgasket was all that was blown.  Also, I would check the converter to see if it is melted since that is the major cause of a blown head gasket on one of these cars.