My old car (Shinmei's/ Franks current now) I dropped $1200 to get the timing chains replaced. My current car is a 1993 with 188,000 on the clock never been done before..... I took out the guides and replaced the top tensioner and it still rattles every once and a while.

It has to be done. But 1200 is just alot of money.And a few shops actually denied to work on my car due to the labor involved. How hard is it to do this really? It just seems like it will take alot of time. I have never done this before and I have no problem trying it but I don't wanna mess anything up obviously lol...... Any help advice etc would be much appreciated. Also curtesyparts.com has the kit for like 500 bucks and amsperformance.com has it for 300 some dollars. Is ams as good as OEM?

 

AMS's stuff is oem.

get a FSM. it may be $90, but that plus that timing stuff is still less than 1200

 

Yeah man I think I will probably go that route. Like I said it doesn't look hard it's just the time involved. Which I kinda don't have working 7 days a week and all lol. I have an FSM downloaded I guess maybe I will study it for a while.

 

if you have any mechanical knowledge, then no it isn't hard. its just like you said, time consuming, there are alot of steps involved.
I personally perfer to just pull the engine out and do it outside of the car. It makes it easier to get to everything. It can be done with the engine still in the car, it just makes it a little tighter fit to get you and your tools where they need to be.
Your FSM should be pretty detailed. I've seen some that just say "replace chain" you need one that tells you how to replace the chain. Once you've got a good FSM, you just have to follow it step by step. Just don't expect to get it done on your lunchbreak.
good luck

 

If you can, try and save up the money and buy a new engine altogether. If you're really determined to do it yourself, it wont be that expensive, but you're going to spend a LOT of time on it, its just a pain in the ass job to do, not necessarily because its difficult.

 

ya wouldnt it be cheaper to put in a new engine?

 

Buy a rebuild kit and rebuild the engine while ur at it...itll save u time in the future

 

Depends. If he wants to replace the chain himself, it'd be "cheaper" in the sense he'd spend less money but he's going to spend a lot of hours doing this, with the amount of hours being relative to his mechanical experience.....

Although if he gives up and sends the motor to the shop it'd be a better idea to buy a new motor anyways, who knows how long that timing chain has been bad or what else is wrong with it?

 

this is a KA we're talking about there is no "new motor"...i wouldn't reccomend spending 1200 on replacement but i like some others have said...take it out and rebuild at the same time....(find a used KA to put in for now)...