update: just to help the car out a lil bit and ease my mind i bought some head gasket repair and it actually helped a great bit. the car doesnt miss near as bad now. but i know its not a permanent fix. But today i eyed this f body firebird right by school and checked it out and asked the guy if he thought about selling it. and hes said he was actually thinking about it. its a 94 trans am, fresh automatic and a completely rebuild lt1. the motor and tranny and together but the car just needs to be put back together. he said he would take 1800 or 2000 for it. would this be a better route than to keep messing with my 3.4L? or should i keep my car? im leaning towards the firebird but i want someone elses opinion. thank you

 

Wooooo...... don't scare the dam kid.. look. They r making it sound worse than it is. Everything they r talking about ,heads,block,Intake... if n e thing the intake is more likely to warp cuz its aluminum. These r the worst possible scenarios... I.have over heated my engine the day I rebuilt it cuz I was such a dumbass and forgot about making sure the block was full of antifreeze, not just the radiator. I red lined it, but shut it down and that was on a FIRST RUN FRESH REBUILD. Which is where ur more likey to melt something.
If its skipping, it could be n thing from a vacuum leak, bad coil,plug, fried wire or ICM. TO FIND OUT THE CYLINDER. JUST REMOVE WIRES ONE AT A TIME (WHILE THE CAR IS OFF) then start it. If it get worse with a wire off u know its not that cylinder. Do this until it doesn't change the engines idle at all. Then u know what cylinder it is. If that doesn't work, then check ur coils, if it dont fix it then, check ur ICM with a test lite. Or just avoid all this and bring it to a dam auto parts store n have em scan it. G.L

 

While the scenerios that have been mentioned are possible not all of them are likely at the same time. Now if you were getting improvment after using the block seal I would venture to guess you have a blown head gasket and possibly a warped head. Run a compression test to determine the extent of the damage and if you do have a blown head gasket you should have a machine shop check and mill the heads.

Massey

 

Yep. The fact that his engine ran fine until it reached meltdown temperatures, to the point where it wouldn't even turn over right after that, lends me to believe that the problem is warpage or a gasket and not a sensor, spark plug, plug wires, etc. Especially since the "head gasket repair stuff helped a great bit".

 

I would recommend doing a compression test before buying anymore parts. that way you knownif you have to get the heads brought into be machined or replaced. The heads are known to warp but don't just buy some with out testing first.

Also if you feel confident about putting that lt1 firebird back together and that's what you really want then go ahead. It's all upto what you want to do. If you go that route I'd recomend getting your car working good before you sell it.

 

Also if you feel confident about putting that lt1 firebird back together and that's what you really want then go ahead. It's all upto what you want to do. If you go that route I'd recomend getting your car working good before you sell it.[/QUOTE]

yeah i was planning on doing what i need to with my car then get rid of it.

 

update: did my compression test today and it came out fine. i also replaced the plugs and wires and lower intake gaskets and upper intake gaskets and still no difference.

 

Coolant pressure test. Head gasket has to be blown pretty bad to show up on a compression test. A small passage might not blead off a lot of compression but it might let in enough coolant on the intake stroke to short out the plug. Your temp repair most likely hid the damage from the compression tester.

If you are 100% sure the car ran better after you added the head gasket repair junk then I am 100% sure you have head gasket issues. Why on earth would you remove the intake and not just do the head gaskets while the intake was off. You had 60% of the work done.

 

because my uncle told me the heads need to be machined before i put them back together and he said id have to pull the motor. is this true? and i put new coil packs on the car and it helped a bunch. i can actually run it at wot and it will be fine til about 4000-4500 and it will start to miss. could it still be a head gasket issue or is it starting to sound like a ignition issue?( the whole engine bay was soaked with coolant when this happned)

 

When My timing cover gasket blew, I drove the car without any antifreeze for a mile to get it home. The temp gauge was pegged way over 260. All it did was blow out my head gaskets. Bar's leak fixed me up and I've been driving it ever since then.