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cylinder head or new motor

Dee23

New member
So my 01' Buick LS 3.8 n/a has a burnt valve. Had this misfire on cylinder #2 for a few weeks now. Changed the plugs, wires, swapped coils, changed #2 injector, and i even changed the battery due to its low SOC and low SOH mind you it was 4yrs old anyway but i wanted to rule out the charging system or the curent flow being affected in anyway.

Put a piece of paper in front of exhaust muffler and sure nuff it was slighty sucking in the paper. Car drives fine while on the gas obviously but sitting at idle in park or in gear foot on brake of course the misfire is pretty noticeable.

Car has 150k miles, bought it at 64k miles, always kept good maintenance on it

My question is, is it worth the time to remove the head to get the valve turned or just get a motor? Im taking a gamble of just doing one head bc its very possible that another valve may go 1k miles down the road then ill be back in the same situation.

Now i only have 2 cars. 00' GS and 01' LS. Unfortunately the GS is in the body shop right now from an accident so the LS is the only car between me and wifey.

So time itself is the issue here. Dropping a motor and putting it in can be done in a day easily or the morning after on some lazy ****ttt. I can get a motor for around $400 60-70k miles on it.

Labor free since im doing it. No with the head i would have to take it off, clean up some **** like gasket coolant grime or whatever, mind u this is the rear cylinder head so its not that comfortable, then i have to take it to the machine shop and wait for them(on their time now)

So cost and more importantly time, which would you guys pick.... Drop Motor or repair Head?
 


I'd have a leakdown test 100% confirm a valve issue before doing anything.

If it were me, I'd do the head. But you, well you know your financial and time situation more than anyone here.
 
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