Went to go look at a J1 Elantra this weekend thats only being sold for $750. Exterior and interior are in perfect shape. But the engine has a bad exhaust or intake valve as per a compression test. All other cylinders are fine, the car idles but really rough and I drove it a little down the road and back but it lacked power and was sputtering. I would need to move the vehicle from the previous owners house to mine which is about 20 miles away. Now my question is this

Can I do more harm to the engine driving the car like this? I know the cylinder head will need to be redone but will my rings/cylinder walls suffer from this? I havent decided yet if I was going to fix the current engine, put in a fresh Beta, or just do a 4G63 swap.

Thanks in advance

 

How do you know it's a bad valve? Valve seat? Valve seal? Could it be piston ring? Ringland?

I cracked a valve when a sparkplug broke. Ran it for weeks before swapping the valve.

 

At $750 it's a project car, and a lot can be tolerated at that price point. You might do some bad things to the catalytic converter with straight gas flying by a bad exhaust valve. If it's an intake valve, and isn't backfiring, it's probably safe to drive. Carry a fire extinguisher and have somebody follow you home, but I'd take the chance.

Worst case is you have a full set of damaged valves, and they are only saying it is one. If you are not ready to do a full rebuild (or replace) on the head, then you might consider passing on the car.

 

I say go w/ the engine swap. At least that way you know the engine will be fine and you'd have extra parts if need be smile.gif