Engine runs like an angry bull after DIC, plug, valve cover gasket swap

[jonnet97030]

Among the long list of things my 01 9-5 2.3t needed was new spark plugs, new DIC, and new valve cover gasket.

The valve cover gasket wasn't a gasket so much as several strings of plastic and half a tube of permatex black. The spark plugs were the ones for the Aero and had about .8mm left on them. Cylinder 1 is cross-threaded I think, it took several minutes to get that spark plug to hand-tighten. Looks like crap inside, but that's because the head gasket is leaking coolant. The DIC I didn't have much issue with, but the shop that pre-inspected it said it's getting on and probably time. I also noticed that a nipple on the throttle body had no hose and a hose its size was laying around, so I popped the hose on the throttle body.

Ever since, it feels like there's a giant vice-grip on the camshaft, like the timing chaing is grinding on something, and the whole engine rattles the car to the point that the windows shake and accelerating to 30mph has become harrowing. Oddest thing is, according to the SID, I'm now getting an extra 5mpg!

I'm stumped. Should that pipe be up in the quick connect socket on the intake pipe right over the throttle body? I haven't seen that in pictures of other B235E intakes. I'm wondering if maybe I dislodged some permatex blob now stuck in a line somewhere when I took the valve cover off.

[swisssaabist]

your engine rattle because the plugs are certainly not at the right gap recommended is 0.039 /1.1NGK BCPR7ES-11mm at 0.8 the sparks comes too early and the timing is completely out of range
the tube you've plugged goes on the firewall bpv on the port heading left side ...

can you confirm you have an aero ?? if yes ...the plugs MUST be NGK's NGK BCPR7ES-11

[jonnet97030]

It's a base model, I don't know why there's an Aero intake pipe on the throttle body. The brake booster hard lines that should go to that quick disconnect port are nowhere and my VIN (YS3ED58E313060256) indicates it's a base model. I'm blaming the guy before me, PO didn't know anything about owning cars other than 'turbo makes go fast, put gas, give to mechanic when strange behavior'. At this point though, I wouldn't be surprised to find this is an engine-swapped frankenSaab and there's three models worth of dumb part swaps. I pulled out PFR6H plugs which is what the manual calls for in L4 Aeros, and put in BCPR6ES gapped at 1.05mm. What I meant by having only .8mm left on the spark plugs is that the anodes were almost completely gone, it looked more like a bit of wire sticking out of the center of the spark plug.

I got a vacuum diagram, that tube is going to whatever that thing under the wiring harness on the firewall is which is where it's supposed to be, soap test showed no vacuum leak. I'm thinking I may be losing compression in cylinder 1, I'm thinking that how hard that spark plug was to get to sit right, there may have been some preexisting crossthreading or the old plugs took some thread with them. Not that cylinder one isn't already a s***show, the head gasket has a hairline coolant leak and it looks like Silent Hill in there. I'm going to pull the DIC and valve cover and take a look and report back. I suspect helicoils getting installed in the not too distant future... I'm also going to look at the top timing chain guide, there was so much permatex where there should have been valve cover gasket that the cover now rides a couple mm lower.

[GeoffR]

Your engine is a B235E for which the correct plug is the NGK BCPR6ES11
The Aero plug is the NGK PFR6H-10

For clarity the 11 refers to the gap in millimetres so 1.1 mm, the part number is for a pre-gapped plug. The R in the designation indicates an inbuilt resistor which is required for the direct ignition. Hope this helps.

[jonnet97030]

I FINALLY got a chance to get down to and replace my crankshaft position sensor. The front of the old one was fried and black. I had to take the air intake apart, which had a bunch of oil in it, all the way from the cobra pipe to the throttle body. I also took the DIC back out and looked at the spark plugs, some dialectric grease had been pre-applied to my DIC and got all over the heads of two of the spark plugs. I cleaned the DIC out and cleaned the spark plug heads off and put dialectric grease around the neck of the spark plugs. I still need to pull the valve cover back off to check the top timing chain tensioner to see if it fell off.

Also, is the exhaust manifold supposed to be one solid unit at the engine block or is it supposed to have a gap between the four pipes?

The block is a B235E, so the PO was taking it to a mechanic that was putting the wrong parts in. With the new CPS and the spark plugs cleaned off and the ECU reset after all that fiddling, it runs and sounds a little better. Spark plugs are all good, and 1 and 2 don't seem to be losing any compression around the spark plugs. Ticking time bomb, but so is poverty. But now the power steering pump is making a groaning/squealing noise. It's caked with CHF, but it's been caked. I need to clean the MAF anyways, I'll do that and clean off the pump and see what's going on. And I need to replace whatever the valve is on the vacuum line between the vacuum pump and the brake booster, there's a thousand tiny holes in it and it's whistling a bit.