TWO CYLINDER SATURN, bad idea.
 

I removed the rocker arms from cylinders 1 and 4 on my Saturn and drove it for several miles. In 4th gear it would easily go up to 70 mph. In 5th it could just barely pull 60-65 mph. Acceleration was slow. Actually I had an SUV holding me up on the freeway on ramp :) . I had to use almost twice the RPM I normally do. That seems reasonable. Since I was running on 1/2 the engine I just doubled the scangauge mileage numbers. Except for limited cruising on the freeway the mileage was worse than with 4 cylinders. The EGR was too much for the two cylinders and caused some missing. I should have run on cooler intake air but I did not. I reconnected IAC and after a while the computer had adapted to this. As the computer adapted to the change it became harder and harder to keep it in closed loop. Oddly enough no codes were set.

This was a spur of the moment thing and not well executed. Here is a little confession. The lifter/cam follower assemblies entered a resonance between the guide plates and the cam lobe. I heard the rattle but though it would be okay for a short test. It knocked one lifter apart and I had to pull the pan to retrieve the pieces :o . It beat the heck out of the little wire that holds the lifters together. Several pieces made it into the oil pan. In theory some of that metal could have gone through the oil pump screen but for now I am going to assume it didn't. There were just a few holes in the screen that would pass wire this size. It is a spot of work to get an oil pan off of a Saturn.

It is running on 4 cylinders again. This kind of thing doesn't work well with computer controls. I might try 3 cylinders but I would need to come up with a little better system for holding the lifter or at least blocking the bore to plug the oil hole.

This tank is going to drop me a long way on the top ten list :( .

These Saturn lifters have needle bearing rollers and the rocker arms have needle bearings. I was surprised to see that much effort put into the valve train on a cheap Saturn. This was on the 01 car.

usedgeo -

Wow. That's a no-guts no-glory post :thumbup: . Thanks for putting your car's "skin in the game". Hope the fix won't cost too much.

CarloSW2

Wow!! Talk about taking one for the team!!!!

Wow, what a lot of effort for an experiment. Kudos to you!

All it cost so far is a sore back from lying on a creeper. I am not used to that anymore. Sometimes I think I am getting older. Pretty sure I am not getting wiser.

I hate to ask the obvious, but did you disconnect the fuel injectors when you took off the rocker arms?

Absolutely. I guess I should have said so.

this story reminds me of my old Lincoln, it would idle way to high, due to the Idle Air Bypass falling off, so to warm it up / defrost it, i would just unplug 2 or three fuel injectors.

BTW, It's nice to see some one not just talking about this, but actually trying it. Props to you!

Yeah, I'd thought of trying something like that, too.

I think it will run too rough on 3 cyl

nice effort, though

Wow that's pretty amazing attempt. Looking at your gaslog that's pretty amazing too.

It looks to me that some of your biggest improvements came from heating the intake air and from using sommeander's grooves? Or do you think it just coincided with improved driving? How are you going about heating your intake air and how much are you heating it?

Don't overlooks the tires at 60 psi, belly pan, and grill block. This heated intake air concept needs the grill blocked to be very effective.

I think the Somender Singh grooves are a factor. They would be more effective if I could find flat top pistons and get the compression a bit over 10:1. I am working on that but I am not going to pay $500 for a set of custom pistons.

Saturns respond very well to heated intake air. Most say 180 F is about right. I now own a 99 and an 01. The programming is different on these two cars. My 01 runs fine to 200 F. There is a little missing just under 3000 RPM. There is a large power loss but the mileage is good. There are several things you need to do to get the hot air. Here is how I did it.

1. Relocate the IAT sensor from the horn into the main body of the air cleaner. This will require a 1/8 inch pipe tap. I put mine in the in the lower front middle.

2. Plug the cold air inlet with something. I used a soft toy ball squished into the air horn.

3. Remove the plenum and find some tubing that will fit the plenum hole, about 1.5 inch OD. Run some heated intake hose, you can buy this at auto parts stores, from the air cleaner over to the exhaust manifold. Others have used dryer vent hose or similar.

4. Form a thin sheet metal house over the exhaust manifold and tuck the hose under it. Mine is very crude. This could be improved a bit. Actually if one needs to increase heat transfer from the exhaust to the air a system sometimes used on experimental aircraft is to take a long small diameter spring about 5/16 inch in diameter. Over-stretch it so the coils are separated 1/8 inch or so and wrap it around the exhaust. I have not done this but it is a possibility.

With outside temps below freezing this is not working too well even with the grill virtually totally blocked. There are a number of areas where air leaks in. I bought a small heater core to use water to preheat the air but I have not built anything to use that yet. That would go into the bypass circuit.

Too many ideas and not enough motivation to do them. Some have benefit just by tricking the intake air temp input with a resistor or combining it with heated air. Fake heat made a dramatic difference to my scangauge numbers but the fillup at the station was disappointing.

This is a start.