mb2hurley

i have a 91 camaro rs v6 auto

the cars been giving me all kinds of problems lately. i have plans for it in the future but for now i need it as a daily driver. the car loses oil and water. randomly loses power, blows black **** out the exhaust on start up and high rpms, plus hard to start at times, always smell fuel, almost positive its running rich. just a very unreliable car at this time.

curious if a rebuild would be worth it, or maybe a new motor. or if a few more repairs would do the trick.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

99% of your complaints are DRIVEABILITY problems.

They are caused by relatively simple repairs to the engine's control system.

I'd suggest starting there.

A "rebuild" only renews the major mechanical parts. Nothing in your list of complaints sounds like any of that is broken. You could very easily spend all that money and do all that work, and when you put back on it all the old broken sensors, water pump, hoses, and whatever else is shot and wore out, it'll behave EXACTLY THE SAME as what you have now.

FRMULA88

more repairs? what repairs have you done?

How long have you owned it?
How many miles?
What is the service/maintenance history? & Do you keep track of it?
Have you ever done a tune-up?
Do you know how to do a tune up?
Loses oil and coolant from where?
Ever cleaned the engine to see where oil & coolant is leaking from?
Ever pressure tested the coolant system? inspect the hoses, water pump etc.

Learn how to walk before learning how to run. if you can't maintain what you own.
find a mechanic that does.

Cars need maintenance, and older cars in particular because the POs probably the "add gas & go mentality" and were not mechanically inclined so when something simple wears out... well the whole thing must be junk.

Just get a new engine when all it needs is simple maintenance is not the answer.

learn the basics before worry about stuffing an LS1 with twin turbos in there

mb2hurley

ive had the car about 4 yrs now.
around 245000 miles
ive change the oil every 3 to 6 months. running synthetic. just recently changed all fluids, motor, tranny, rear end, coolent. and full tune ups every yr
im losing alot of water from behind the motor somewhere, i belive a freeze plug, i cant see where its coming from, not heater core or hoses
ive cleaned serveral times under there and its just hard to pinpoint
waterpump is a month old. alot of sensors less then a yr old. iac, tps, cts. o2. and more.

FRMULA88

LOL

what do you expect after 245,000 miles ?!

rent a coolant system pressure tester, you will find the leak
if it's not a freeze plug it's the intake manifold or head gasket(s) it will be easier to find if you use a work light..

even better is install tracer dye in the coolant and use a black light...

if you are losing oil & water... could be head gaskets or you are using too thin an oil for a motor designed for thicker oil. With that much mileage I would not have changed the engine's diet to synthetic oil after 200,000 miles of deposits have accumulated, some of those deposits were helping to keep the engine sealed.

Myth or not more engine and transmission failures have been caused by a good intentioned owner taking a high mileage poorly maintained car and "flushing" the engine and trans.

mb2hurley

i know its a tooon of miles. why im thinkin a rebuild is in order lol

i did all the flushing and changing to synthetic when i got the car and it took it all fine and even started to notice she ran better, more power, better gas milage. stayed that way for few yrs. and just in the last 8 months or so its been throwin all kinds of problems at me

bwiencek

If you're not BURNING the oil and the coolant isn't going into the crankcase or the combustion chamber then I wouldn't rebuild the engine. Since the it sounded like ti was going fine before these problems I doubt you suddenly need a rebuild to get you by until your "plans" can come for the car...

Concentrate on fixing the external leaks and then probably more importantly getting the fuel / spark systems right to get rid of the overly rich running which isn't doing your engine (and wallet) any good....

Do the dye test and find the leak - hope it's not in one of the head gaskets and it's just the intake.

Since you say that the coolant is coming out the back of the engine somewhere AND you're running overly rich - I'd almost pull the intake, clean everything up and then inspect the heads real good while the intake is off to see if you can't see signs of leaking from the heads. Those V6's were known for the intake gaskets leaking so I'd take my chance and just replace it if you don't see anything from the heads... Plus sealing up the intake real well might fix some vacuum leaks and get it running a little better.

Once the intake is sealed look at the causes of the rich running (black smoke and fuel smell) - could be as simple as a leak in the fuel pressure regulator diaphragm, leaky injectors, bad coolant temp sensor (for the computer not the dash gauge), etc