Replace Cylinder Heads or Entire Block? Help!

[lordfranco]

Hello!

I was driving home last night on the freeway when all of a sudden the car turns off and all the dashboard lights turn on. I attempted to start the car and all i heard was a whirling sound -- Kinda weird.

I got the car home and I found that the timing belt had missing teeth and the belt looked like it was in pretty bad shape. I pulled the ECU codes on it and it came out "55" which in my manual says that all systems are okay. Electricity is working fine but the engine won't crank.

I know that the engine is pretty sensitive to these situations and now I'm stuck with either rebuilding the cylinder heads or just going for an entire new block. I don't know what to do. Can somebody please help? What's the best course of action after having the timing belt go bad?

[lordfranco]

BTW, the car is a 1993 and it has about 168,000 miles on it.

[swimshark]

youre almost better off just replacing the motor. the VG is an inteference motor so def heads would need to be rebuild and check the pistons. when was last time timing belt had been done?

[lordfranco]

Yeah I was thinking that it was an interference motor so I'd probably have to replace the entire engine. The timing belt was in pretty bad shape and unfortunately I don't think it was replaced after the 90,000 mile mark. I got it when it had 140,000 miles about 2 years ago.

I had a mechanic come over last night to check the state of my car and he pretty much told me the same thing.

I have a guy in L.A who can give me an 1996 infiniti j30 engine. Do you think that could work? He's selling it for 550 bucks. Local shop in L.A

[Mkiisupra]

If you dont know what your doing then just buy an engine hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

If you know what your doing take your engine apart and find out what if anything needs to be replaced.

[J30tChumpCar]

If it is a confirmed timing belt.... changing the entire engine is cheaper then doing your old heads with new valves, the block doesn't get damaged, heck advertise it as a good short block to the 300zx guys and possibly recover $100-150