not sure what your stying to say. the wording was kind of weird...

but from what i gather, your implication is that maybe the knock is due to the fact that i replaced my own head gasket.... im not inclined to think thats the case... as i asked the kid i bought it from if it had a noise before the head gasket blew, he said yes..

but dont get me wrong, i may be a mechanic but i definitely did a sub par job when doing the work... as i rushed it and just was stupid.... i cleaned the gasket area on the block with rags in the cylinders and all that good stuff but when i removed the rags there was some debris in the cyl walls and some fell down to the piston ring area... i didnt have any compressed air, so i threw it back together, knowing what the consequence could be... and now it burns oil.... im pretty sure i smoked the rings..

but in truth im ok with that, as i bought the car for 400 and didnt want to perform a full rebuild without knowing what kinda of condition the engine is in... so i figured i was going to re-ring and replace the bearings at a later time if the engine was good...but if this noise really is a rod knock then that would likely make it more reasonable to buy a new engine and swap it out.... and surely it would be a bonus to go to a turbo engine

Na, what I mean is that it may just be a matter of time before one of our engines finally go, Then we may find out what that knock is by some one taking their engine apart. I have no reason to put you down, and if it seemed like I did then I apologize. This past October was my first head gasket, I had no special tools or air to blow all the crud out of the cylinders as well, I just cleaned it as best as I could. Not trying to offend anyone, sorry bout that.

no worries, like i said i wasnt sure what you were trying to say.... haha

GOD!!!! YOUR SUCH AN ASSHOLE!! j/k


well eventually i am either going to buy a new engine... or attempt to rebuild this one.... i like the idea of a 300 hp N/A. although, that might not be feasable as i know that the bmw inline 6 thats in the m roadsters has a 3.2 L engine with constantly variable valve timing and its pushing out 315 hp and 251 ft lb or torque... so i dont think 300 is a reasonable goal as i wouldnt be able to get the ideal valve timing (of course without losing power elsewhere)

i wanted to stay away from turbo, as i hear they often need servicing... any truth to this?>

There is truth to that if you start out with a crappy, abused engine, and abuse it more. If you start with a well built fresh engine running decent boost you are not going to have problems. It is when people try to get big numbers and abuse the engine constantly that they get problems. Though i abuse the hell out of my NA even with this knocking sound and its still holding up.

probably rod knock. Keep the oil full and keep an ear out for it getting worse. Don't want to destroy your block.

yea, well i got an opinion from some of my toyota friends at the dealership and they all agreed its a rod knock... as evident by depressing the dashpot so that the throttle chokes out... then the sound was clear....

so my next question... im pretty familiar with rebuilding engines.... however i dont want to pull the engine... i was wondering, is it possible to do an in-chassis rebuild? just pull the timing belt, head, lower crossmember, and oil pan. is this possible?

i imagine the rod knock can be cured with new bearings??? is this correct?

Well, there is a lot to do when it comes to dropping the cross member, I haven't done it but I have seen a write up on another forum about it. It would be much easer to pull the engine out unless your hell bent on doing it in car. As long as the crank and the connecting rod journals are ok, then new bearings will be good.

Good luck.