i have cleaned the throttle body twice already since owning the car .i once posted about raising the idle because of this near stall issue i get sometimes .
i even cleaned that metal passage between the head and the air system (it was clogged shut)everythings been a temp fix to the idle issue .

some days are better than others .maybe time for new plugs again ,this engine does burn oil .has since the day i bought it with 74k on it .uses about a quart a month .we do drive it alot though over 10k a year .

well ,maybe another 10k will go by until i talk about this sound again...lol...i hope so .

 

It is hard to try to diagnose an obscure problem such as a noise on a forum format in that touchy feely diagnostics are hard to perform. But as to the concern of the loose chain? Many of us have multiple high mileage older Saturns that run satisfactory considering age and miles. A close friend of mine who owned a wrecking yard at one point in time had a rent to own shtick going using reconfigured Saturns for the very simple reason of stating Saturns are easy to work on, run for ever and require simple maintenance which by in large consists of using the proper weight oil (Generally something like a 10W40) and will run for 400,000 miles. My personal experience with my 94 SC2 with about 110,000 miles is simple. Nothing is wrong with it, it doesn't burn oil and I have no need to do any particular work on it to keep it running although at the moment it needs an oil change and a paint job.

 

How is you oil usage? we got to using a quart every 200 miles on our first twin cam engine.
Finally burnt a valve around 140k in 1999. Called it a two cycle for awhile. Car is at 216k and holding since last summer with the replacement engine. But both would give low idle issues from oil coking up in the egr valve. Got a code 32 I believe when it would happen. I take the egr off get the valve spool the move again and it's good for a couple more months.

 

i use about a quart a month ,but we drive alot .lately we been getting a cyl 2 misfire .
i changed all the plugs and wires and it was good for about 9 days . this morning the car was acting up again (like a misfire)and the wife left it home and took my truck .

its raining too hard here today to look at it .been having some issues with this misfire thing lately and its starting to get on my nerves .

 

To repeat an often restated issue, one of the reasons and probably the only one the
Saturns earned the reputation of being a bit of an oil burner is the factory recommended 5W20 motor oil for year around usage is way too light an oil to be used in climates where the temperature is over zero (0) degrees on a regular basis and the light weight oil has caused excessive engine wear.
A light weight oil such as something that begins with a 5 as part of it's weight designation and ends with a 20 is not good oil to use year around or with a high mileage engine.
A 10 W 30 or a 10 W 40 is a far better selection. 'Specially if you are looking at a 100,000 mile motor + as many of them are today.
And the sad part is once wear take's place all the motor fix it in a can does not do the least bit of good.
However using a heavier oil is not only good for the engine but it might slow down some of the usage. If problems are taking place with plug fowling, a miss-fire is certainly a symptom of that, a heavier oil may help. The old school approach to that though is to also used a "Hotter" spark plug which will help to burn off the deposits and let it work a bit better, but plug life would be affected.
So pick the worst of two evils to deal with and live with the easier one. Use a hotter plug and change it more often.
A Champion version of the recommended plug is a RC12YC stock number 71. A hotter version of that plug is a RC14YC stock number 431
Champion started stocking plugs at auto parts stores about that the time the Saturn came out using a stock number designator rather than a spark plug type designation so I am not sure how your store will be able to identify what you ask for if you do not know exactly what you want.
It will be listed by Make and Engine
or
RC12YC or RC14YC, the Hotter
or
Stock number 71 or 431, the Hotter

I personally use Champion plugs so if I need something special I happen to have a 1996 Champion plug catalog that was published with information presented usefully in both stocking methods.
So I look things up. Yes 18 years old but the data works.

 

Unc there has hardy been a car built over the last 22 years that 5-30 has not been the recommended oil. The two main problems are the oil passages and over heating. That's what I got from Jimmy and Vic two life long Saturn tech's that now run a shop in Phoenix. I like many others run 5-30 without a problem well above 100,000 miles. I was just over at Rj's house while he was changing the oil in his daughters car. He put in 5-30 mobil 1. I know that car has at least 110,000 trouble free miles on it.

 

Same here, my oil cap on my 2000 SL1 even says 5W-30. I was using 10W-30, but I switched, and I swear the oil consumption has decreased. It goes through about 3/4 a quart every 1000 miles. I use Pensoil High Mileage which is a synthetic blend.

 

I am fully aware of what the "recommended" oil is and was but most importantly as to why. The recommendation came about when the factories pushed the emotional button of fuel economy stating that a light weight oil will give better fuel economy than anything heavier. And for the purpose of EPA where everything is critically controlled and measured that is true. Real life though says for the most part, any observable difference is pretty much blowing smoke. But the buying public is basically gullible enough to react to a MPG statement on the window sticker in the show room.
And as to the engine, certainly for the most part it will be machined well enough and careful enough to last through the life of the 30,000 miles warranty and not come back to haunt the dealer. Which by the way was pretty much the dealers story where the Saturn in my driveway came from down in Chandler area off of I-10 south of the city. Since the day of purchase that engine has been run on 10W30 an oil more suited to the temperature range of the Phoenix area I live in. I started maintaining that car in about 1999 and started to use a 20W50 oil in it, a weight I use in all of my cars including the new Chrysler I bought in 2007. 20W50 although on the extreme heavy side is still specified out for the temperature range of Phoenix area.
Fast forward to today that Saturn does not use a drop of oil between changes. Nor does anything else except my muscle car which has the valve stem umbrella's bad in the heads. It sucks oil due to that. As it is more of a show car than something driven daily it is easier to feed it oil than pull the heads to re-do the valve stem umbrella's.
The oil used on 6 of the 7 cars is a 20w50 conventional oil. On the Chrysler I use 15W50 mobile one on 4000 mile intervals, the first two change the filter and add a quart to make up for the loss with the filter the last one a full oil change. At 100.000 miles it still has to start using oil.
The point simply being, Saturns and others have developed a reputation of being oil burners.
A simple reason with an explanation is that a 5 W 20 recommended oil when you check into the Oil Viscosity vs Temperature range used before the manufacturers stopped using it as a reference for engine reliability and a number on the oil cap of my Saturn and my Chrysler is an oil that is recommended for use in a below freezing environment on a regular basis and is not recommended for sustained high speed driving in temperatures above freezing.
Why it became a standard was compliance to EPA and keep in mind, manufacturer's responsibility stops when the warranty runs out. This has take place long enough now that two generations of drivers of used cars no longer pay attention to engine reliability but instead are amoured to the acronym mpg and take poor oil mileage as a standard to live with.
Sorry I am old school enough to have lived through this and watched oil technology give us engines that were indestructible for hundreds of thousands of miles and then saw marketing destroy that to the point an engine that is only 100,000 miles is sucking oil at the rate a 1930's car was prone to do due to many factors, but what ever they were, light weight oil can be considered the culprit as the first choice today.
Fact: Saturns and others are lucky to get any kind of respectable oil mileage using the factory recommended 5W20 oil that existed when they were built.
However when a proper oil was selected based on temperature range of the environment they were run in according to a standard viscosity vs temperature chart they too will run as intended with no oil consumption at all.
Something now that has been lost with time.

 

All I'm saying is 10w30 would not solve the oil burning problem saturn had with the s series. Help fight against it, maybe. There millions of car that run 5-30 without a problem. Why is it the 1.9L burns oil so badly and others do not? Once a car starts burning oil, heavier oil can slow it down depending on the reason. 10w30 or 5w30 I use what ever is on the shelf within reach makes no difference to me. I've not had a car burn oil since my youth when I could not afford something nice. You can rant and rave about 5-30 motor oil all you want. 10-30 is not the s series savior.

 

The only difference in 5w30 and 10w30 is when the engine is cold. Once the engine is at operating temp, they are both 30 weight oils. The 5w30 will aid in cold weather starts due to the fact it is less viscous at cold temperature.