wgmiller
10+ Year Contributor
- 33
- 2
- Nov 28, 2009
-
melbourne,
Arkansas
The car is a '93 Talon ES with 74k actual and less on the JDM engine we dropped in it after original owner failed to replace the timing belt and you know what finally happened to an old car with low miles. When we got the engine in and running, it surged constantly instead of idling. I drove it on a forty-mile trip and discovered that it ran perfectly on the road. Power was better than I remembered and fuel mileage was exceptional. I knew from a timing belt job on my Laser that the timing on the old 2.0 was tricky to set, and I asked my mechanic if he thought the timing might be off. A humble guy, he said he had set it carefully at specs and I believed he knew what he was talking about. We tried various remedies including a new map sensor and nothing changed about the rough idle. The car was checked again and it became the consensus that it needed a valve job because the exhaust would suck back against paper placed against the tail pipe.
I found it hard to believe that the engine needed a valve job because it felt like such a perfect low-mileage engine. It runs like one with 15k on it. After some hesitation, I authorized the valve job, thinking I am not going to be able to drive the car or sell it without a fix. When the mechanic removed the timing cover and checked the belt, he discovered that the timing was "a half a tooth off". Carefully, the timing was re-set, and problem solved, after a year or more of struggling with no success.
I found it hard to believe that the engine needed a valve job because it felt like such a perfect low-mileage engine. It runs like one with 15k on it. After some hesitation, I authorized the valve job, thinking I am not going to be able to drive the car or sell it without a fix. When the mechanic removed the timing cover and checked the belt, he discovered that the timing was "a half a tooth off". Carefully, the timing was re-set, and problem solved, after a year or more of struggling with no success.
