scottyr94

I have a 94 SL1 that I am TRYING to do a dohc swap in. Well after getting getting 2 faulty motors from a yard in New York, I decided to give Joey a chance and see what he could do for me. I really thought he would pull through and send me a nice motor that would run good. It came pretty fast and went in smoothly. I went to start it up today and it would not fire. after a good 10 minutes of trying and it almost starting almost everytime, it finally did. Lots of white smoke came out the header and then it had a loud knock coming from under the cam cover. I was running open header in a garage and I could easily hear the knock over the exhaust. The oil pressure was reading around 60 psi at idle, but it idled like ****. Real jerky and it sounded as though someone was hitting the cam cover with a hammer or like there was bolt getting thrown around inside of it. I took the cam cover off and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I'm wondering how serious this is and if it can be fixed. I would contact Joey, but I'm certain he is having much larger problems than I am, so I'm just wondering how spendy this sounds, and if I should go ahead and tear the head off. Thanks for any help.

philS

Have you checked all the basics -- timing, Plugs and wires, codes?

Everything hooked up properly?

What was wrong with the other two motors?

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Phil
02 SL, Classic Mini, Ranger

pitstops2

I am a Saturn Tech. It is most likely the timing chain and tensioner. They can hit very hard and noise will be around top of engine on the passenger side.Sometimes the lifters will loose their prime and be very noisy, you just have drive it , at times quite a bit.

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keith smith

scottyr94

It does sound to be coming from the passenger side. I took the valve cover off and the chain and everything seems to be tight. There was oil in the head, so I know it is getting oil. I spun it by hand with a rachet on the crank and nothing seems to be loose. The timing could be off for all I know, it does have new plugs and wires. I spent $800 on this thing and Joey said there was a 1 year warranty and a 100% startup guarantee. Only problem with that is good luck trying to get ahold of him now.

Lets see, the first motor had no oil pressure. The guy was all cool about that and was willing to take it back. It took him 2 months for him to find me another one, and when it came, the water pump was seized, there was no map sensor, all the vacuume hoses were cracked in some way and there was no egr valve. Plus I was unable to get the throttle body to open up. If there was another junk around here with Saturns it wouldnt be so bad, but there isn't anything near and I live nowhere near a dealership.

scottyr94

Also, I had it running for maybe 1-2 minutes max and when I took valve cover right after I shut it down, maybe five minutes later, there was a cloud of smoke that came from under the valve cover, is this normal?

scottyr94

I got around to taking the head off and all looks well with the valves and stuff. The cylinders still have the nice crosshatch pattern in them yet. So I decided to take the exhaust cam off and I notice that one of the lifters was not moving at all when I took it out, and a few of the others were kinda sticky. Would this cause alot of noise in the head?

Ssicarman

Sticking lifters certainly could ause a noise. Hard to say what the noise would be with out actually be ing able to hear it though.

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A lousy day in Paradise is still a day in Paradise.

scottyr94

Best way to describe it is that it sounds as if there is a marble bouncing around under the valve cover.

scottyr94

Also, it is possible to just buy a couple lifters or would I have to buy a whole set? I have no idea what they cost, but I can't imagine they are cheap, and then with 16 of em, ouch.

scottyr94

Just got word back from Joey, and he said to soak everything in Mystery Marvel Oil and that should take care of my problems. Well I guess I know what I'm gonna be doing tonight.