New Member, Need new motor

krazeeclimber · 08-03-2005, 09:34 PM

Hi All,

My name is Paul and I am a recent owner of a used 1996 Saturn SC2.
I am living in the Ottawa Capital area in Canada.
I liked the look of this car and found one in very good shape.
Unfortunatly the motor seems to have gone. I was hoping to try my luck at replacing the motor myself.

I went into trades about 6 years ago after getting sick of computers. I now am a wide format printer operator(My printer can print a full size Saturn

) in the trade show industry. I am also trained in Cabinetmaking and sometimes run the CNC router table here, which could come in useful for some neat mods and custom parts ! ! !

So now where do I go from here. My car sounded like there was excesive valve noise and on a recent trip home from the mountains the motor started getting noisy. Near the top of a hill the CLACKING sound got really loud and the car stalled. I had my mother and 3 year old daughter in the car and tried starting it again. It ran, altho loud and rough, and leaking oil. I managed to make it around 200 miles to my home town bofore it konked out and I decided it was time for a tow. I figured I would risk driving it as I figured a full motor pull was due anyhow and I would probably have to pick up a used motor anyhow. At any rate I didn't want to sit at the side of the road for hours with my little girl and we manged to putt home at 45 mph around 2000 rpms. I needed 8 liters of oil for the trip as it was burning/leaking oil.

The car is still in great shape and I picked it up fairly cheap so I don't mind spending a little on the motor as I am sure the frame/body has another 10 good years in it.

I have been searching with not much luck on info for an engine swap for this car. Should I stick with the 96 DOHC motor or can I replace it with a newer more powerful motor? Any tips would be apprecitated. Also any past links would be great too.

I have been interested in Electric Cars and am a recent member of a club. Maybe this would be a good donar car?

Some of my previous vehicles where a 1972 Pontiac Lemans with a 350 Chevy, a 1989 Honda Civic Si, a 1990 Ford F-150 with a 5.0 liter, and I currently also have a 2000 GMC Jimmy SLS as I just build myself a new house in the country and the 4x4 is great in the winter and the truck is a lot of fun (minus the gas milage). This is why I bought the Saturn. It was a fun car for around town and the short twisty trip to the new house in the country.

My Civic rusted out. Otherwise the motor was great after almost 200,000 miles. I bought it with around 20,000 and I had that poor motor at the redline all the time

Maybe I should have kept the motor instead of trading the car in, maybe it would have fit in the Saturn ..... oops .... ! ! !

Cheers,

Paul Bell

P.S. I recently picked up a little gas MIG so I can now do some welding along with the wood working

my99sl1 · 08-03-2005, 09:46 PM

Welcome to the Spot!

PurdueGuy · 08-03-2005, 10:25 PM

First of all, welcome to Spot! Glad to hear you are still optimistic about your Saturn, despite the trouble.

Quote:

Originally Posted by krazeeclimber

I have been searching with not much luck on info for an engine swap for this car. Should I stick with the 96 DOHC motor or can I replace it with a newer more powerful motor? Any tips would be apprecitated. Also any past links would be great too.

The engines didn't change too much in the S-series, so any 1.9L saturn engine can work. Stick with the DOHC unless you are totally avid about gas economy and want to give up a lot of pep for maaaaybe 5 mpg. Swapping in a non-1.9L saturn engine wouldn't be worth it for you (or for most people). Getting another year engine wouldn't really benefit you any unless it's just lower miles, etc - later year engines didn't really have any more power, etc. If you find another year engine, just do a search for "engine swap" or simmilar terms to see what you'll need to make it work, and if you don't find what you need, post your question in the appropriate section.

Quote:

I have been interested in Electric Cars and am a recent member of a club. Maybe this would be a good donar car?

A saturn would be a decent car to make electric, since it's so light, but it's not going to be any amazing wonder. I'd probably guess a 50 mile range, but don't know that for sure.