Thread: Well, found out what's wrong with my car, lol...

So I had one of the shops i deliver parts to take a look at my car to figure out what's wrong with it.

I guess I could explain what it was doing... so the car felt really underpowered compared to the 02 regal GS i had, hell it felt slower than the 07 SE grand prix i had, and its gas mileage was much worse than both its predecessors. The 1-2 shift has also seemed to hesitate before shifting really hard, even when driven super gently.

The boost "gauge" before would never reach full, usually it'd get to about 2 bars shy at about 5K-5500.

They popped a scanner on it, and it was getting a code for the blow-off valve solenoid.... because it was unplugged.

The motor mounts (torque mounts? the big bars on the front of the engine that hold it to the frame by the radiator) are blown and just rocking the car with your arm causes the motor to slide back and forth over an inch and a half, with 1 arm.

After plugging the solenoid back in they took the car out while hooked up to a scanner to monitor it, and said that everything was running great, all the fuel trims were fine, no knock, nothing.

I get the car back, and it is worlds apart. It is a @#*%load faster, the boost "gauge" hits full bars at like 3K, and I swear i think the throttle response is improved too.

So, Im going to replace ALL of the mounts with the urethane ones, and hope that also fixes the transmission issues.

Knowing that my car is not knocking and has good fuel trims, pre-tune, do yall think it'd be safe to drop pulley size to a 3.4 with headers, rockers, and an intake?

The shop that i took it to said it'd be around $500 to do a LIM gasket, and they guessed at $300-400 to do a header install. Do those sound like reasonable rates, did he unintentionally low-ball on the headers estimate install cost? If I'm not getting any other codes and everything looks good, do yall think it's still prudent to do the LIM gasket, or can it likely wait safely?

As always, thanks for reading and any input.

headers and then a pulley drop. those sound like fair shop rates.

but knowing the lim job can be done for a 120 in parts and your free time.

and then the headers can be done for the cost of the headers.

those two items labor costs are more then i paid for my car. i could never let that happen lol

both are fairly easy jobs to do in your driveway.

That's good hear. For me , unplugging that solenoid had the opposite effect.

I would try to research some write ups here and try the gasket yourself. It's completely do-able

May as well do the lower motor mount as well, if the uppers are that bad, the lower one has to be torn the hell up, too.

im going to replace ALL of the mounts, tranny too, with polys.

Scotty, it's been years since I turned a wrench, and I'm afraid I'll mess something up. That said, wouldnt I still need to replace the exhaust manifold gaskets if I did the headers?

Sh*t..Pizza and beer and you can have a lim job done lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If I were you I might just get the mounts, all of them, in good shape and drive it long enough to be satisfied that the trans (and rest of car including but not limited to that intake gasket job) is sufficiently healthy to proceed with power mods. Headers are almost never a bad idea though, if a good fit is available.

The NVH from all poly mounts might be a bit much. On my regal, just the poly uppers (square and round ones) was too much for me, along with the solid rubber lower engine and hd trans mount. Going back to rubber round mounts made it perfect, of course this is completely subjective, so ymmv.

Upper squares poly, dogbones rubber and just get new hydraulic mounts for the lower. You'll end hating having all poly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

All poly will jar you stupid after a while.

Originally Posted by 99GT2dr

The NVH from all poly mounts might be a bit much. On my regal, just the poly uppers (square and round ones) was too much for me, along with the solid rubber lower engine and hd trans mount. Going back to rubber round mounts made it perfect, of course this is completely subjective, so ymmv.

cant be worse than my skylark, it has solid motor mounts and a poly trans mount and a nasty cam. I like the shaking

All poly lowers was ok. It's the poly uppers that made me feel the vibes at idle. But everyone has their own opinion on what's too much vibe so it's all relevant info IMHO

The Skylark has a full frame, not comparable to a unibody where engine is partially mounted to the body (at the dog bones). Vibrations transmitted through the core support are indeed annoying and thats why theres so much slop built in (2 bushings plus flexible link at each top mount). Even an unbalanced cooling fan blade is irritating due to how much vibration is transferred by the W-body upper front structure.

I was gonna say...

I noticed more vibration from just the little poly circles and squares up top than I did with the poly trans and motor mounts.

Well, I must say, having all poly's really isn't that bad. There's a mild vibration at idle, and that's about it. It doesnt even come close to the shaking and rattling of the skylark. Maybe I'm just not that bothered by it. That said, I swear it feels quite a bit faster now, which doesnt make any sense to me, who knows, maybe I'm losing my mind, not a long drive.

Fix the motor mount, maybe change the trans mount, FLIP the front dogbone bushings. I have zero movement in my motor and there's no vibration.

Just a thought. Search for it on here. Takes you about 5 minutes and it's free.

I've already had ALL of the mounts replaced with polys, and I got the shorter dogbones, doesn't bug me, I prefer being able to feel what the car is doing, and my skylark is waaay more shaky, which is part of the fun imo