96 bonneville SE with 166k

About a week ago, I was driving it to school (med school) when it started to act sluggish. The check engine light came on flashing, and it got more and more sluggish until it died in a big puff of smoke about a minute later. Had it towed, and I had the intake replaced (common problem, I know), and was told there wasn't any internal damage, athough a considerable amount of coolant got into the engine.

After driving it away from the shop, noticed that it was still a little sluggish, especially in 2nd gear, above 2200rpm continuing until about 3200rpm. The tach also bounces a little bit too. That has progressively gotten worse over the past week, driving about 150 miles total. Driving it back home today (about 5 miles), I was worried it wouldn't make it. When I pulled in to park, it did the "ding ding ding" a total of about 5 times, but nothing out of the ordinary was showing up on the dash.

I don't know if I can get the codes, but do you think it is safe to drive (IE I won't damage the engine) to the repair shop (5 miles)? Or should I get it towed? Also any ideas as to what it is would wrong would be helpful, might be somewhat impossible without the codes though. I'm thinking its possibly electrical/sensor in nature, but considering the correlation along with intake replacement, I thought someone might have a good idea of whats wrong.

Plugs and wires are about 2yrs old, standard delco parts (I think).
MAF sensor replaced about 3 months ago.

I wish I could be a little more helpful, sorry I'm such a n00b.

Did they replace the LOWER gaskets? Are you still losing coolant?

No, sorry, it was the upper intake.

I am not losing coolant to my knowledge. It looks to be at the normal level, but I checked it yesterday and then again today and I didn't see a difference.

Have you read this Techinfo article yet?

http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...e=article&k=38

The upper intake is only 1/3 of the problem. Half the problem depending on what kit they used. Read about the lower gaskets in that article.

Thanks for the article. I doubt the LIM gasket was replaced, as I wasnt too familiar with that being a problem when it was serviced last week. I wish I had known that at the time...

You should be able to go out to the car and tell. It'll be obvious if there'* grime and dust on a black plastic gasket, or a clean transition from heads to LIM with a black plastic or aluminum gasket. Clearly visible.

This is a big possibility. Other internal leaks are too. As well as an O2 sensor shot from the coolant exposure. Fouled plugs from the first failure. The list goes on.

#1 thing right now is oil condition after driving and coolant level. Call your shop and ask them too.

I too had an upper intake fail. It filled the number 2 and 6 cylinders with so much coolant that it hydrolocked the motor. I replaced the upper intake, replaced the mower intake gaskets, and had the heads rebuilt at the same time. I made sure I flushed ALL the coolant out of the motor and flushed about 8 qts of oil through the motor before I started it up. Put everything together and fired it up. It purred like a kitten and made no abnormal noises. I drove it that night (put about 70 miles on it) and it ran awsome. Went to work the next day and noticed that it was hesitating some. It idled fine and wasnt making any noises. But something wasnt right. When I got to work, I put it on the hoist and replaced the donut gasket that I had ordered. When I brought it down and fired it up, I heard a rod knocking. So I pulled the oil pan off and started pulling rod caps. Found that the #1 rod bearing had spun and scored the crank. That was 3 weeks ago. Long story short, I just got it running again today after doing a full rebuild. Take it back to the shop, but I would NOT drive it anymore. If you do have a bearing that is ready to go, you dont want it to spin and ruin that crank.

Thanks for the advice. I drove it to the shop and told them what was going on. They said it looked like there was a loose wire and they fixed it real quick and told me to check it out. Definitely not fixed. And when I drove it around, the oil pressure gague was hitting the red at idle. Thats probably what caused the original "ding ding ding" noise.

They'll have a look at it on Monday. I wish I had more time to work on it myself, but I've got a huge test on Monday.

At what point should I scrap the car and start looking for a new one? I've put in $1k in the past 3 months, and I have no idea what this is going to cost.

Doesnt sound good. My oil pressure was real low like that just before the rod started knocking.

I did a full rebuild on my motor: New upper intake, all new gaskets and seals, 180 t-stat, new pistons, reconditioned rods, reground crank, new cam rod and main bearings, new water pump, new oil pump, new timing chain set, used the old cam and valve train, reconditioned the heads and lower intake, new freeze plugs and cleaned the block . I did the assembly work myself so all I have into it is parts and machine shop charges and that totals about $1700.