Well after spending two day redoing the upper end of my Olds. Achieva I had found out that the bad liters had worn flat spots in the camshaft, I didn't notice the lines that were cut into 5 of the 12 lifters till I had put it all back together. A good friend of mine looked at the old lifters and found that they were almost seized up and had groves and a flat spot in 1 of the 5 bad lifters. So after spending a little over 500 dollars on this expensive adventure should I go on and fix the remaining problems or just driver it till the motor blows in it. I myself is fed up with it but I wanted to hear yalls opinion and how I should look at this problem I have now. I want any and all advice about this because it really put me further into the hole I am already in finance wise. So please be truthful and don't bullshit me. Also I have a tile loan on the car so I can't get rid of it.

It'* about another $300 to replace the cam shaft. I say find another engine.

rockauto has one for 246. if you would have known before you did the other stuff it would be worth trying a used engine but at this point you have a new upper end and if you have the cam you will be alot better off in my mind than a questionably maintained engine. and there is no way you are getting a decent low mileage engine for 250. question is if you can do it in the car or not which is specific to that and i havent worked on one. some have room to slide the cam out through the wheel well opening, but you may have to undo some of the mounts and lift it enough to slide the cam out over the fender.

So if I replace the camshaft do I replace the camshaft bearings to along with the timing chain, gear and dampener? Also I can remove the two front mounts on the motor to get enough height so the camshaft can clear the fender. Also how long can I drive it like it is right now. I probably won't be able to do anything with it till next year after taxes. Also if it will make it that far do I have a mileage limit or can I just drive it anywhere I want to including out of state if I need to.

you can never say how long something bad is going to last there is just no telling. i was thinking more along the lines of changing the cam in my car not because stuff is wore out and now that you mention it everytime you go deeper into the engine something else is wore out, so your bearings likely need replaced, probably con rod bearings and that other stuff too. maybe you would be ahead to get something different or have your lower end rebuilt. depends on what each of those things costs. i would take it easy on the engine till you figure out what you are going to do as the wear in the cam would wear more on the new lifters

With all the wear you have found, I'd agree - find another engine.

Well I was able to get rid of some of the noise by adding a 10w-40 oil from Castrol. But now after I did all that work I am now throwing a misfire code in cylinder 2. Auto Zone cleared it out but it keeps coming back so does that mean I have a bad coil or what. I already pulled all six spark plugs and inspected them and they are fine, also I replaced the wire to about a month or so ago. So with a misfire code can that make some of my engine noise to or not. Also I never had this code come up till I did what I did. The last time I had my Service engine soon light come it was a bad TPS sensor but I replaced that and never had it come back on till I redid the upper end. Any ideas?

Also I forgot to mention when I replace the spark plugs along with the wire I used bosch wires along with bosch double platinum spark plugs. I did also discover a few vacuum leaks I will be fixing with in the next week.

Switch the coil that feeds cyl #2 with another coil, and see if the misfire follows the coil or stays on cyl #2. If it moves, its the coil. If not, the next thing I would check is the fuel injector on cyl #2.

I did notice the coil packs are original from the 96 year so I am guessing that is a good life if it is that but also my step dad did mess up the fuel injector wiring hardness during the tear down. He broke a few of the clips off the wiring for the injectors so I had to rig them up but I am gonna be going to the junk yard today to get a another wiring harness and see if me code will go away when I get it replaced.