Ok so to provide an update on where I am at. After 2 weekends of work we discovered some fun stuff (not really hahaha). We tore the whole top off the motor, heads and all, this was a good thing as it appears my head gasket was leaking and we caught it before any damage occurred. New camshaft is in, new lifters to go with it. My cam and lifters where fairly worn so it just appears it was a good time to change them out. We got everything together after many hours of labour and blood being spilled (those intake gaskets can be really sharp when worn a bit). replaced all the fluids and fired it up. No problem on firing it up and its the first time it has ran in months. Hooray'ish. Now for the bad part, it started miss firing. 1 cylinder on the passenger side and 2 on the drivers, we also got a new code P0123 Throttle Position Sensor High Voltage. I have new injectors on order and they should be here today as that seems to be the problem. Pulling the plug wires did not change the miss fire and I may have screwed them up removing them (do not undue them from the fuel rail when pulling them out). On the weekend I plan to run some tests to see if it is a wire issue with the throttle position sensor or if the throttle body is toast.

Good times and Just Empty Every Pocket everyone hahaha.

Now of those that asked, I am in Alberta, Canada. Yes it uses oil, but no more than any other 3.8L the standard 1 quart every 2000 miles (3000 km) roughly. Also to answer questions coming up, yes I did notice Rad fluid disappear, but it was slowly (like the overfill tank emptied after 2 months so a slow leak) and I though I just had a little leak around the water pump as there is some residue there.

 

And the saga continues.... So this weekend consisted of changing out the fuel injectors and fixing the plug on the throttle body. That didn't take to long and we fired it up again. The throttle body worked, hooray, it seemed to be idling decently so I revved it up and as I hit 3000 rpm the flashing CEL of death came up. So I shut it off and pulled the codes, P302, misfire on cylinder 2. Lots of swearing commenced. Its not the plugs or wires or spark at all as we checked all that and switched the 2 and 4 plugs and wires. It looks like I may not have any compression in that cylinder now, but the compression tester we were using is old and we dont think it was working right. So anybody have any ideas? My plan right now is to first check compression with a better tester, if I have compression I guess I will rip the valve cover off and check to make sure the rocker and lifters seem good. If no compression well I guess it will be time to do piston rings.....

But hey at least I could take it on a little drive through the yard, it felt good to have it moving at least before I parked it outside of the shop.