Well, thanks for all the input.

I did go out today and remove that service bolt.
My buddy seemed to think it was tightening the
belt. But I have a feeling that with that bolt
in there, I was loosening the belt during it's
travel. Like, I think the tensioner spring is
supposed to go up above the point that that bolt
restricts it too during the normal travel of the
belt. But with that bolt in there, it wasn't able
to go up in it's travel with the spring like it
should.

I also completeley removed the valve cover this time to check out the timing marks for the cam
shaft sprocket that are on the BACK of the cam shaft sprocket. As the article said, these marks that are 180 degrees apart are
supposed to be exactly lined up with the black
timing belt cover thing (not the upper and lower
timing belt cover that you remove). So when I
took the valve cover off completely and rotated
the crankshaft to its marks, I noticed that the
cam shaft sprocket was off just a tooth. So we
got that lined up.

Then with that lined up, we checked the timing
with the covers on and the timing light. Well, it
appears that the ECU automatically retards the
timing a bit (for better low end torque, right).
My buddy shined the light down there and the 3
dots on the crankshaft pulley were constantly
behind (toward the passenger compartment) the
indicator on the timing belt cover. Once we
looped the ECU with the paper clip as instructed
by the haynes manual, we noticed that the timing was no longer retarded. Then after the engine
reached its operating temperature, we could see that the 3 dots on the crankshaft pulley were
dead on with the indicator on the timing belt
cover.

So I took it for a spin and the torque was there
at about 4000 RPM's or so as it was before the timing belt change. So I guess everything's aligned correctly.:thumbup

but the only problem now is a loud noise seemingly
coming from the exhaust system. and this just
started after the timing belt change earlier this
week. don't know what it could be.:dunno: