>Cam gears made a lot of noise, that's why I got it cheap -- previous owner got scared of it! It finally blew a head gasket at around 120K. Another >mechanic told me the noise was lash in the gears, but he'd never heard of one breaking. He also said if they were replaced about 20K later it would >sound the same. It was a temporary car for me anyway -- I drove it two years then sold it. Noise was only noticeable at idle and low speeds (say >under 30) anyway. >On April 4, 2005 mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > I think the Puke moniker came from how noisy they were when the mid eighties hit them. > The cam gears wore out quick and rattled like hell. > Plus the pistons were loose in their bores. ABout one of the noisiest engines going. > A guy in the dealer I worked at sent out one and had it honed for .010" pistons and put in a new cam gear set. > When he dropped back in you couldn't tell it was running. > Very smooth and very quiet. They did have a problem with timing gear noise. One noise was the gear moving back & forth in the block and could be mistaken for rod knock at an idle. They also had a good bit of gear whine. Once again there were several updates which eventually took care of the problem. The aftermarket gears were Aluminum and came with a different oil tube which took care of the whine. GM came out with a different thrust plate that allowed more oil to the thrust area. That took care of the knocking. Many of these engines used a vacuum pump which was hidden under the intake. That also made a good bit of knocking noise which could be mistaken for engine knock. If you did all the updates and took care putting them together they actually were a pretty good motor. Of course it took YEARS for them to sort out all the problems and fix them. Kinda like the 2.2 Chrysler. They had a LOAD of problems when they first came out. Over the years fixed most of them,,,, But that's another story,,,, Bruce Hevner