I'm just getting ready to start rehabbing a 1998 SC2 . The car was parked about 5 years ago in a garage, and we're getting ready to move it into our working garage and I have no information of the cars history (i.e. suspension condition etc.), other than the car shows 68000 miles and interior appears in good shape but for the headliner over the rear seat is falling down some. Maintenance is reported to have been regular i.e. oil changes etc.

Any input on what to initially expect is much appreciated.

 

Welcome.
That's a 98 SC2 I do believe.
Black gold metallic DOHC, automatic.
I would drain as much oil as you can cold before starting it for the first time while changing the filter Measure how much you took out and add back whatever it takes to make a total of 4.0 quarts in the vehicle.

The oil , if even liquid and not gelled, is entirely in the pan. If you crank it as is, the top end of the engine is running with no oil until something gets up there. If it does? Gotta get oil up there before you start it. The sound of a dry head with metal on metal is ugly and destructive. The lifters are hydraulic and I'm not sure if the oil remains in there if the vehicle sits like that.
The most likely reasons for such a young vehicle being parked like that are

• Someone simply just wasn't using it
• Automatic transmission problems (almost universal on the S Series automatics)
• Oil burning issues (common on DOHCs if it was run on 5w30. Should be on 10W30).
• Someone blew the differential pin in the transmission. Check for a hole in the transmission casing.
• Was run low or out of oil and timing chain broke. You'll know as soon as you turn the key.

I could go on and on. What is your automotive DIY aptitude?

 

Thanks for the reply Derf. You assumptions are 'spot on'. This car belongs to my wife, she drove it until about 5 years ago and parked in this garage as she had a Saturn VUE that she was driving. We recently got married 2 1/2 years ago, so hence my lack of much vehicle history. As for my DIY Aptitude, I would put it at pretty good, I have three street rods in my stable, a fully equipped shop with all manor of tools, blast cabinet, welders, plazma cutters and a four post lift, so I'm all set there.

Your advice of draining oil etc. is right on, I need to get the car from it's current garage into one of mine. From the brief research I've done so far, I'm seeing a lot of focus around the automatic transmission as a possible weak point. Additionally, I'll be going through the brakes, suspension etc. I'm not an upholstery guy, so the headliner will be a concern.

Finally, how much of a candidate are these cars for engine/transmission swaps ? I'm wondering about anything from a rudimentary swap of a standard trans for the automatic to a full blown swap to either another 4 cylinder GM or Honda ??? It's early in the game, and I realize there is virtually no resale on these cars, so I'm just looking to toy around with this one.

Thanks again for your reply.

 

The t a a t automatic transmissions in s cars suffer from valve body issues and input shaft nut loosening among other things. They a weak point of every Saturn automatic s car. If you truly plan to keep this vehicle, I suggest converting it to a five speed. It has been done many times, and the very specific directions on how to do so, what you will need, and how to do it which I already mentioned are out there on the net. Sixthsphere.com is a playground of correct information put together by very enthusiastic S car owners back in the day. Activity on the site is more or less dead but the rest serves as a repository for these types of things and many others for s cars.

There are no bolt on swaps for either the engine or the transmission on an S car other than the other engine and transmission variants designed specifically for that vehicle. You have the dohc versions which are preferred as the engine has the higher horsepower of the two.

People have done all types of fabrication and implanted everything from the lsj supercharged engine in the ION red line / Cobalt SS to the LNF turbo engine in the Saturn sky, to doing a real wheel drive conversion, dropping a V8 in it, and using it as a drag car. If you could build me a sleeper RWD V8 SC2, I just might buy it from you.

One of the limiting factors with souping up these s cars is that you cannot tune the PCM on these vehicles as you can others. GM never provided the information regarding how to interface with the PCM directly so you can't rewrite anything to it.

The end result is that anything you add must be done as a standalone/piggyback which makes for a pain in the *** because you need the original PCM running the vehicle but need for example to have the vehicle follow a fuel map that is the combination of the stock fuel map in the PCM plus the additional fuel being supplied by much larger injectors than the stock ones for example.

Since it has no BCM, you are also constrained with regards to operation of things in the cabin. I suppose you could supplant the engine control portion of the original PCM with a different PCM to run a different engine using a different harness which would have to be spliced somewhere with the original harness coming from the original PCM from the terminals that control features in the cabin.

I think that sounds fun but I'm not sure

Or you can just rip out the entire harness throw away the PCM, take the stock harness for the engine and tranny you are putting in and figure out how to control door locks windows etc through an added body control module from said donor vehicle essentially by pin by pin rewiring from the new BCM to all the cabin stuff.

So it's a project to put it mildly.

The most popular modification has always been to slap a turbo on the vehicle, custom fabricate everything that is needed, move some stuff around to make room, stand alone piggyback controller, and maybe some nitrous just for fun. Throttle body from a Geo Storm, true cold air intake, beefy clutch that can handle the increased torque added by the turbo, welding differential pin in the transmission so it does not shoot through the side of the case from intentional or unintentional wheel hop, port and polished intake, larger diameter exhaust, non fart can non-ricer catback exhaust.

people have produced anywhere from 200 to 400 wheel horsepower depending on boost

I have read you can run seven to eight pounds of boost on stock internals. Never tried it. Don't know if it's true. But anything higher than that boost requires all forged internals unless you only want to drive it once.

But all of this for a front wheel drive vehicle.

Please convert it to rear wheel drive, drop a crate V8 in it, fuel injected or carbed, your choice.

Who needs a PCM anyway?

 

Thanks so much for the information and guidance. I have thought about converting to manual shift, I need to get the car up here and get started. I looked at sixthshere.com and Think I have a path forward to start.