bad piston ring??? with opinions needed

[tegster1]

Ok well to start off I was driving to work one morning on the freeway and I look down and see my temp. gauge as hot as it gets. There are cement walls on the side so I have to drive a little to the next exit and pull off to the side. A tow truck comes and picks it up and takes it home (very sad day ). I find the problem which was a crack in one of the hoses running from the firewall to the hard pipe that runs in front of the engine. I replaced both hoses while I was at it.
So I put everything back together and start it up. It all seems good until a lot of smoke starts coming out of the exhaust. At first I think ok well I may have spilled some coolant while filling up my radiator. I go to work the next day and my friend notices smoke everytime I press the gas pedal or sit at idle for a bit. I also noticed a big loss in power. I go buy a compression tester and its 175-60-170-165. As you can see cylinder 2 is really low and from doing all my reading on here I put a little bit of oil in there and try it again. Compression rose to 160. This led me to believe that it is a bad piston ring since the compression rose quite a bit and almost to normal....is this correct? The main reason for all of this is for opinions on what the best thing to do is.

I would rebuild it but its my daily driver and only car plus I dont have the time/space/tools to do that right now (will be in the future though). There is a place locally that has engines and installs them www.aaengine.com They gave me an estimate of 3500 which includes the engine plus labor to remove the old one and install the new one. I called Mark Darius at overbore.com and he gave me a number of 2000 dollars or so for a new engine. Would anyone know an estimate of how much it would cost to have my problem fixed rather than getting a new engine or would a new engine be a good idea at this point? Im not really too worried about the money as long as it fixes it and is the best option.

97 gs with few mods. 155k miles. Bought sept. 2004 with 110k and no timing belt change since then. Fuel filter, water pump, valve cover gasket, brakes, battery and mods have been changed by myself. Only other things changed are oil and tires.

Sorry for the length but I wanted to give as much detail as possible. I dont think I have left anything out but let me know if anymore info is needed. Thanks to anyone who can help me in deciding what to do.

 

[BigRand]

well even if you weren't going to do the work yourself, If I were I would have the shop take out the motor, send that motor to a machine shop, have them re do whats needed, mabe add a lil port and polish to thehead and intake manifold areas.

The guy wants to charge you 2grand for another stock motor, when with 2g's you could have a machine shop take apart the motor and rebuild it for turbo or whatever high horsepower NA machine you want.


Like I said, I personally think your best bet is to have someone else take out the motor send that motor to a machine shop and have a shop put it back in....

 

[tegster1]

Thank you, that sounds like a good idea. I will call around and find out prices of a few places and see which one is the best choice. I do plan on keeping it NA for a while though until I can find a new place and can get another car.

 

[dr1665]

For $3000, you could buy the actual engine out of the HRC drag Eclipse...

I see no reason why, for that kind of money, you couldn't RENT a car (or have a friend/family member rent one and let you drive theirs) for two weeks, so you have something to drive while you pull the engine yourself, disassemble it, have it rebuilt, and then install it yourself.

It's all about how resourceful you can be with your money. If you've changed the oil/water pumps and all that, you can certainly pull the engine out of there. Rent what you can't buy. Hell, more than a thousand of the most die hard DSM owners in the country will be in Ohio in less than a month for the Shootout. Maybe there's a couple locals who could give you a hand.

 

[cc8balla]

Hell, more than a thousand of the most die hard DSM owners in the country will be in Ohio in less than a month for the Shootout. Maybe there's a couple locals who could give you a hand.

Heh, I LIVE about a half hour to 45 mins from Norwalk. If im around, I can lend a hand.

On a side note, I love how I am still a newb here. Even though I moderate 2gnt and Team-2g. Lol.

 

[4UH8ERS]

On a side note, I love how I am still a newb here. Even though I moderate 2gnt and Team-2g. Lol.

No free bees around here . Now go help the boy out, take some pics and earn your points you little newblit.

 

[tegster1]

Well I live about 30 mins east of Columbus which I believe I am about 2 hrs away from norwalk but not sure exactly. I just decided to pull the engine myself since it would save me a lot of money even though I havent done it before or know exactly what I am doing but I will figure it out. I just need to wait till I can borrow my neighbors engine hoist and I can get some help so I can do it this weekend. I basically have it ready to come out except to unbolt it from the transmission and taking off the engine mounts. PS pump is out of the way, header and downpipe are off, AC compressor is off, crossmember is off, oil pan is off with the access panel to the transmission off, starter is off, sensors are all off.

There are also a few other things I would like to do while I have it out so that also helped me decide in doing it myself. New clutch (which little stronger than stock would be perfect), my udp is waiting to be installed, to figure out my compression problem and possibly this (the top end rebuild kit) or something similar http://modernperformance.com/dcx/engine_rebuildkits_eclipse.shtml