Whats wrong here???
 

I am looking to buy an 83 sc that drove fine till it lost power and according to someone else, when it was taken to the shop, they were told that power loss was due to timing being off and when they tried so set timing which was very irratic, found that it had tensioner problems. Does this sound right??? Would tensioner problems cause the irratic timing and power loss? Would tensioner solve this problem??? What is the best way to go if it is tensioners? Carrera or what? Does the engine need to be dropped to do this? What costs can I expect? What is the chance there has been major damage done, or do you guys think id be okay? It ws not even ran from the shop and was towed from there and not run since then. Your thoughts??? Thanks, Mark

I believe, tensioner problems could cause the car to skip some teeth on the cam gears. That may or may not have caused valve to piston contact which is bad. Tensioners might fix it, but you'll also have to have things timed and possibly more. Personally I'd just move on to the next car unless they are giving this one away. It may not be catastrophic or expensive, but there are too many well kept nice SC's out there to choose from that run well to consider this one unless you want to and are prepared to do everything yourself.

I'm no expert. Hopefully one of those will chime in.

Did the chain skip? (is that even possible? even with a collapse tensioner) If the tensioner failed, it'b be pretty obvious. If the cam timing is off, it can be checked....

Need more info...

What else could it be if you have loss of power and irratic timing??? Ideas??? To fix tensioners, do you drop engine?? The price on the SC is 6K, Does this mean buy it or pass on it. Thanks again, Mark

my thought is that if tensioners fail, this leads to catastrophic breakage and the engine will require dropping for rebuild, etc. if it's possible to diagnose 'failing' tensioners, then yes..the pressure-fed carerra tensioners are recommended over the old mechanical variety. since the car is an '83 and not a 'carerra' i guess we can assume it doesn't have carerra tensioners. tensioners may be easily replaced in a few hours and it doesn't require dropping the motor, just removing the cam covers. 6k sounds pretty cheap for an '83..i'm guessing this means it's in pretty sorry shape and will soon be demanding more $$$ from the next owner. if it's an sc you want, i'd plan on spending twice that and finding a good example or spending 6k on this one and another 6k in upgrades/repairs asap. i'd keep shopping unless you can post pics, etc. and put forward a good argument for buying this specific car. good luck!
ryan

The distributor is run off the crank or layshaft, I forgot which. In any case it is not run by the cam, like you would have it on a pushrod V8. Either the distributor is bad or there is something else wrong. Tensioners would not explain the problems with the dis. timing, since the dist. runs independant from the cams / chains...

If you do not know what's up, assume replacement engine or rebuild. Replacement is about 5k, if you do the work yourself. If you have an otherwise exceptional SC, then it will be worth it, but if it is an average to sloppy example, pass!

George