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Well, had this cursed, lame excuse for a car for over 2 years now. After all we have been through, I figured now would be a good time to start a build thread for it.
A bit of history:
In January of 2008 my first car, a 1990 Buick Le Sabre, blew up the transmission, wouldn't go out of 2nd gear. With it being so old, and at the time knowing absolutely nothing about cars, i went ahead and sold it for almost nothing and went car hunting. My mom had driven Saturns since 1991 and always loved them. After quite a bit of shopping, I found a dark blue 98 SC2 with 88,000 miles, and an auto-tragic. Talked them down to a decent price, $2500 and went ahead and bought it.
Everything was smooth sailing until September of 2008 when reverse slam started happening. After doing a ton of reading, I went ahead and did a valve body swap. Keep in mind, up until this point, I had never even done an oil change. Well, that lasted for about 2 months, then that Valve body crapped out. Went ahead and swapped it again, and that one sucked again. I tightened and replaced the input/output shaft nuts both times, but still died on me. Did a crap ton more reading and my friend Joey and I swapped in a manual transmission in January of 2009.
Joey had a ton more experience with working on cars than me, but neither of us had attempted anything close to a transmission swap. Took us about 5 days, working on it a little each day. After a ton of trouble shooting we finally got it up and running and i learned how to drive a 5 speed.
Fast forward to march of 2009 and the oil decided it had been in the crankcase long enough and proceeded to go into the transmission. The engine spun almost every bearing and had to be rebuilt. Bought some parts off ProjectSL2, after a long drive to Virginia. Upon getting the parts back to Greenwood, Indiana, We discovered that all the parts were covered with an impressive amount of dog hair. Cleaned it off with just shy of 100 cans of brake cleaner. Assembled it and it ran pretty darn smooth, pulled nice and hard. Broke it in properly and everything went to hell again. Managed to blow the intake manifold gasket 3 times, each time torqued to spec and both flanges cleaned extremely well. And the curse continues...
It was running pretty well up until Thanksgiving week of 2009. Upon a short trip to Lafayette, Indiana (maybe an hour and a half drive if u go the speed limit, so an hour for joey and I) the engine blew up yet again. We were cruising along on the highway, Joey goes for a pass in 4th, winds it out to maybe 4500 RPMS, shift to 5th. Rod bids farewell to the crank and makes a nice hole in the block. After taking the engine apart, it looks like either the rod came off the block, or the top ring land simply gave out. Don't know what happened first, but everything was a total loss.
CLIFFS:
-Bought in Jan. 2008
-Jan. 2009 manual swap
-March 2009 engine blows up
-June 2009 new engine put in
-November 2009 engine blows again
So, the current engine will be built with a few extra goodies and significantly less dog hair. Plans are:
-95 head that has been port and polished and decked .040
-98 block bored .040 over
-Flat face valves
-Twin intake cams
-Scat rods
-Hyper pistons .040 over
-Chrome moly rings
-SAFC with AEM wideband
-2.5" mandrel bent side exit exhaust
-Injen short ram
-Bunch of other crap I'm forgetting to list
Future:
- Either swap the head and boost it, or run a nasty DP nitrous setup.
Did a compression test, number are: 185, 160, 185, 190. Looks like cylinder 2 is the problem. Going to pull it back out tomorrow or monday and see what i can find.
Yanked it out last night, killed rod bearing on cylinder 2. Cylinders 1 and 2 look like they weren't getting enough oil at the crankshaft. Anybody know what would cause this?
A bit of history:
In January of 2008 my first car, a 1990 Buick Le Sabre, blew up the transmission, wouldn't go out of 2nd gear. With it being so old, and at the time knowing absolutely nothing about cars, i went ahead and sold it for almost nothing and went car hunting. My mom had driven Saturns since 1991 and always loved them. After quite a bit of shopping, I found a dark blue 98 SC2 with 88,000 miles, and an auto-tragic. Talked them down to a decent price, $2500 and went ahead and bought it.
Everything was smooth sailing until September of 2008 when reverse slam started happening. After doing a ton of reading, I went ahead and did a valve body swap. Keep in mind, up until this point, I had never even done an oil change. Well, that lasted for about 2 months, then that Valve body crapped out. Went ahead and swapped it again, and that one sucked again. I tightened and replaced the input/output shaft nuts both times, but still died on me. Did a crap ton more reading and my friend Joey and I swapped in a manual transmission in January of 2009.
Joey had a ton more experience with working on cars than me, but neither of us had attempted anything close to a transmission swap. Took us about 5 days, working on it a little each day. After a ton of trouble shooting we finally got it up and running and i learned how to drive a 5 speed.
Fast forward to march of 2009 and the oil decided it had been in the crankcase long enough and proceeded to go into the transmission. The engine spun almost every bearing and had to be rebuilt. Bought some parts off ProjectSL2, after a long drive to Virginia. Upon getting the parts back to Greenwood, Indiana, We discovered that all the parts were covered with an impressive amount of dog hair. Cleaned it off with just shy of 100 cans of brake cleaner. Assembled it and it ran pretty darn smooth, pulled nice and hard. Broke it in properly and everything went to hell again. Managed to blow the intake manifold gasket 3 times, each time torqued to spec and both flanges cleaned extremely well. And the curse continues...
It was running pretty well up until Thanksgiving week of 2009. Upon a short trip to Lafayette, Indiana (maybe an hour and a half drive if u go the speed limit, so an hour for joey and I) the engine blew up yet again. We were cruising along on the highway, Joey goes for a pass in 4th, winds it out to maybe 4500 RPMS, shift to 5th. Rod bids farewell to the crank and makes a nice hole in the block. After taking the engine apart, it looks like either the rod came off the block, or the top ring land simply gave out. Don't know what happened first, but everything was a total loss.
CLIFFS:
-Bought in Jan. 2008
-Jan. 2009 manual swap
-March 2009 engine blows up
-June 2009 new engine put in
-November 2009 engine blows again
So, the current engine will be built with a few extra goodies and significantly less dog hair. Plans are:
-95 head that has been port and polished and decked .040
-98 block bored .040 over
-Flat face valves
-Twin intake cams
-Scat rods
-Hyper pistons .040 over
-Chrome moly rings
-SAFC with AEM wideband
-2.5" mandrel bent side exit exhaust
-Injen short ram
-Bunch of other crap I'm forgetting to list
Future:
- Either swap the head and boost it, or run a nasty DP nitrous setup.
Did a compression test, number are: 185, 160, 185, 190. Looks like cylinder 2 is the problem. Going to pull it back out tomorrow or monday and see what i can find.
Yanked it out last night, killed rod bearing on cylinder 2. Cylinders 1 and 2 look like they weren't getting enough oil at the crankshaft. Anybody know what would cause this?
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