Question.. Need Help!!!

[systemoverride]

Yes I tried to search.. no luck. maybe you guys who have been on here longer can help. Help or post a link. My Coug is in bad shape. Horrible valve knocking and a louder single tap and some chatter. It hesitates going up hills.. itll be fine then seems to lose power then goes back up. I smell oil real bad and there is smoke coming out the exhaust.. a whitish grey.. I dont know that much about engines or many people that do. they asked me to ask people that know the Cougar well so any thoughts on the above mentioned problems or as a last resort what engine swaps are there other than another 2.0 Cougar engine? Better Focus engine? V6 swap? V8 swap? Any help is much appreciated. Im starting to hate my Cougar. :(

John

[Seawulf]

Is the car overheating? Cause a whitish grey smoke coming out the tail pipe is usually a sign of a blown headgasket and you're loosing anti-freeze. Aside from that I'm not sure.

[systemoverride]

Its right in the middle between hot and cold but when we bought the car the temp gauge didnt work and they said they fixed it... so hopefully they did... the resevoir is almost completely full and the color is a brownish red.. any thoughts on the engine swap?? id like to turbo something if im going to go through all the work of an engine change i might as well find something i can do F/I or V6 or up swap...

John

[crazyoldcougar]

i would tend to agree with seawulf on this one...atleast about the headgasket...if the temp gauge was broken before that would lead me to belive they found out the hard way..ie the headgasket blew..or somethign blew...by the sounds of it your car may have heated up enough to burn a ring or two...it is a four banger so it has to work all that much harder...

i would image that the thermostat was screwed...caused the car to over heat, badly...then possibly burned a ring or two and blew the head gasket...

white smoke= blown head gasket
bad oil smell= blow rings, oil is squeezing into the combustion chamber
losing compression = blown rings
knocking and tapping = unknown to me but i would assume something to do with rings and valve seats...

my prognosis is engine is pooched...

sadly engines for these are poping up everywhere...lots of these being written off...a V6 swap i think is possible but you need all the associated hardware and possibly the tranny,ecu and gauge cluster...big task..

I4 swap would be easier i think..from what i understand the focus engine is basically exactly the same as ours...not sure though...a sweet would be a SVT focus if you could find one..

first things first though... i would have a rad test done to see if your headgasket is blown and then i would have a compression test done as well to see if you have some busted ass rings and cylinders... then go from there..you may be abe to just build up the engine from scratch essentially....go with SVT focus internals or something?

[systemoverride]

thanx guys well gues i got some work to do i wasd thinkin the svt fouci for a swap:hitit: :naughty::smoke-t::cover: well i be doing alot of research

[Seawulf]

This will keep you a quick summation of said research. SVT Foci swap is overrated and impractical.

[HKSCougar]

I must concur with Seawulf. The SVT Focus swap is impractical from a money and part effort, and the HP gains are negligible compared to that of a turbo Cougar Zetec. I'd try to find a donor kitty somewhere and build up the engine & tranny for a one-to-one swap. Once you've got a decent powertrain, then build yourself a turbo. You could easily end up running circles aroudn SVT Foci and V6 Cougars.

[diddy]

and not to mention if u got the SVT, then wanted to turbo it u would be kinda screwed bc those engines arent made real well for boost. the stock zetec is better for a turbo than the SVT