[kcind75]

Hey guys. I'm gonna attempt to keep this short...but my posts never seem to end up that way so if it isn't by the end...my apologies. Just want yall to have all the necessary info.

Ok. So it's an '05 Tiburon GT stock. Had around 170k miles at purchase back in '19. In late 2020, it found its way into a Roanoke, Va impound yard. It sat there for 2 years (I was not locked up for two yrs, just took me a long time to get it back - long irrelevant story). Once I had her back, she soon began having temp issues coupled with stalling out and only starting back after a 20 mins or so waiting for cool-down. The coolant was dark orange which I figured was either A) a rusted radiator from sitting up or B) oil in my coolant.

So, as some of you may know, I decided to change the head gasket and all other gaskets thinking it may be blown, or had become blown due to the temp problems. When I began the work almost 10 days ago or so, it would still run but was drinking water.

So, from Rockauto, I purchased the following: Timing belt, water pump and gasket, a full gasket kit, and a radiator. For good measure, I bought 6 new plugs from advance. So...nearly $450 to $500 worth of parts.

I had only done one head gasket in my life - on a 96 s10 with someone who was schooled and certified in auto repair guiding me step by step. This one was gonna be me and me alone. I had never changed a timing belt or even seen it done.

Should I have bought a used engine and been done with it? Maybe. But she waited on me for two years and I enjoy learning. So I wanted to fix her myself.

During repairs, the head gaskets were both fully intact. Fairly sure the radiator was the problem the whole time.

Yesterday, I finally got her back together, hooked up the battery, and put the key in...

And I couldn't believe it...but she fired up immediately. I let her warm up and the only initial problems at idle were a squealing power steering pulley - it was out of fluid so problem solved - and two different hoses were spitting a little coolant due to improperly tighten clamps. Corrected those and went driving for a few hours, stopping occasionally to look underneath and under the hood. No coolant leaks, no oil leaks. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't kinda all about myself at the moment. Lol

So...now to the issues I'm having and the couple of stupid stuffs I did..

While it's not stalling out and doing the weird "no power at all at a stop for a few seconds causing me to stomp it to get it to go" thing...it is noticeably bogging a bit at take off. Seems to correct itself once into 3rd gear...maybe 2nd. But definitely not getting off in 1st much at all.

It sounds different...like a glub glub glub coming from maybe the exhaust? Again, this is somewhat at idle and thru first gear. I feel like it sounds alittle strange a higher rpms, but maybe I just don't recognize how it sounds when completely de-carboned and clean? Not sure.

This may be a dumb question, but after driving awhile, should the top of the heads be way too hot to touch. Maybe thats normal and I've never noticed.

On a side note - when driving around today, the temp gauge stayed just below halfway and didn't budge a bit..at all. So that's good to see.

The possibly stupid s^%t I did:

When I got down to the pistons, the coolant passages (jackets?) were completely coated with the orange crap that was in the coolant. Every coolant component had it. I cleaned all the parts I removed. So...when I got down to the block, I took purple power and sprayed a crap ton into the block, bought one of those dryer machine long wire brushes, and scrubbed it good. Then I...uh...well...thought it would be a good idea to shoot the hose pipe into all the coolant passages. Upon doing this, the grit and orange crap that came out was alot. But in doing this, some water...maybe alot of water...got around the pistons and stuff. Once done, I took the shop vac and thoroughly sucked out each passage. Also, when she got back together, I drained the oil completely and put 4.8 qts of new back in. But..when I drained her..all the oil came out..along with a fair amount of water.

The other potentially stupid thing I did involved the heads. Once reassembled and bolted down with the cams set in and timed, I read somewhere that you should put a bit of oil on the shafts and stuff. Well...I may have got in a hurry and instead of drizzling a bit of oil out of the container on the shafts...I may have done more pouring than drizzling. And I may have gotten a good bit of oil down into the spark plug tubes..specifically tubes 1 and 3 on the back side. I realized I did when I went to hook the wires back up and 1 felt funny. Pulled the wire back up and it was soaked. I think I've seen some burn off of this oil today early in my driving but not sure.

So...that's my story. It's long, I know. Sorry. So is my issue with the MAF sensor? TPS? Did I screw up a plug or two with getting oil down in there? Any help or advice that will help me not to spend too much searching for the correct answer would be much appreciated, as I've spent alot on this whole deal already.

And be easy on a noob trying to learn. Did pretty good considering my overall rookieness. Thanks in advance.

Nick

 

[The_Evenger]

Man, I would never had done a head gasket without knowing it was the head gasket. I've had to pull my heads off twice & I was not happy about it either time, lol. There's nothing that can really rust in the coolant system of the 2.7L engine as far as I know, so my primary suspect would be either a stop leak or some kind of dexcool was put into the cooling system. I'm not a fan of either of those, so that's a giant red flag to me.

I don't think you would've done any damage cleaning the crap out of the coolant jackets, you'd be surprised how much garbage an engine can take.

It's no big deal to have a little oil in the spark plug tubes, it usually means your valve cover spark plug grommets are either seated incorrectly or bad. I've seen cars run perfect with the tube filled to the brim with oil.

I'm not sure what would cause a performance problem when sitting still, maybe make sure the transmission is actually going into 1st & not in a limp-home kind of mode? You could also have a clogged cat, easy enough to check with a back pressure test.

 

[chase206]

When you replaced the timing belt how did the water pump look? What brand kit did you buy?

The sludgy stuff in the coolant sounds like stopleak. If it was used incorrectly and not per the instructions it's likely clogging your coolant passages and thermostat. Rip both out and replace as needed.

What brand spark plugs did you install? We basically can't use anything other than NGK or Denso. Even Bosch as a reputable brand won't play nice. Loss of power would be a symptom.

When the car would stall out and you had to wait 20min to cool this indicates a flaky crank angle sensor. If you lose crank signal you ignition will stop firing until it cools down a little bit. Have you changed this sensor at all? If so what brand did you use?

I can't explain the water in your crankcase though. Sounds like it froze while in impound and broke a water jacket. Do you get particularly cold winters that straight water in the motor would freeze over?

 

[kcind75]

Ok, this the sort of feedback I was looking for. You guys are awesome. So lemme provide some more detail for tall to answer your questions.

First to clarify....the water in the crankcase was from me when I used the hose to blow out the water passages when I had the engine disassembled down to the pistons. It was listed under the "potentially stupid s&%t I did" section. LOL I think while doing so, alittle snuck by the pistons. It didn't get down there quickly - the water sat on top of them for awhile and some was even there the next day. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that the water came from me spraying the hose. I would say maybe a quart of water came out when I drained the oil.

The oil sitting in the plug tube was from when I "drizzled" the oil over the camshaft. Meant to sprinkle some per what I read. Got overzealous and did more pouring of the oil which made me accidentally get some in the tube. The plug was already in place, so the oil was fresh 5w-30 and I didn't drain past the plug. I would assume it's still sitting there or burnt off by now, if it does that.

The water pump looked ok when removed but it did have whatever the orange stuff on it. Btw, once the engine was drained and disassembled, the orange stuff dried. It turned into basically this layer of thick powder coated on everything. Thing is, when I purchasd the car, the coolant was fine. Furthermore, I never used any stopleak or dexcool. Which is why I assumed it had to be rust or oil. And admittedly, I had put some regular water in it at some point prior to impound.

Not sure of the brand of water pump but it was probably not the most basic nor the most expensive.

I have not changed the crank angle sensor. Also, I did use the cheapo bullcrap plugs from advance. I'm thinking I'm gonna go today and buy that sensor and some better plugs, because I've read several times on this forum about crappy plugs not working well. Unfortunately, I read about that after I had installed the crappy ones.

How does one do a back pressure test through the cat?

Also, the car hasn't thrown any codes at all since I finished the rebuild.

Thanks guys.

 

[peachferrari]

It does sound a bit like a clogged exhaust is a possibility. I'm not sure how to test that either but I'm sure someone can chime in on that.

For plugs I've always run NGK in all my Hyundais including the Tib and been very happy with them. That's normally what Hyundai puts in from the factory as well. Platinum or iridium your choice, I like iridium.

 

[chase206]

For the timing belt kit you can't trust anything other than Gates or Aisin. All others will fail prematurely, either due to a failed bearing or tensioner. Cheap kits often fail with the auto tensioner first and it will skip teeth. Other times the bearing in a pulley or water pump will fail next seizing the component and shredding the belt.

If you replace the crank angle sensor use only Hyundai, Siemens, Mando or NTK brands. All others are junk and will land you straight to problem #1.

The thermostat may trap air in your heads if it's installed inside down. The little bypass hole should be facing up. If the heads seem extraordinarily hot you are not getting coolant to the heads OR you are running dangerously lean.

 

[The_Evenger]

For the CAT back pressure testing, you need a tool that's basically a compression tester, except it screws into your upstream o2 sensor(s) bung instead. I'm not sure what the rule of thumb is, but basically any back pressure is bad. you could also make your own if you wanted, they're basically a air pressure gauge with an o2 sensor thread on the end.

 

[kcind75]

Damn damn. I went yesterday and got $15 Denso plugs and I bought a CA sensor from Napa for 70 bucks...but I don't know what brand it was.

Anyway, after changing those two items, now it's throwing a CEL up and it idles so low that I won't stay Crunk and idling. So, while I guessing MAF sensor, I'm gonna go get the code read and go from there. I'll post back the findings.

 

[The_Evenger]

If you replaced the crankshaft position sensor with one from napa, that's probably your problem. ONLY buy OEM for the crankshaft position sensor. Trust me, I've been down that road along with so many others on this forum.