I have a 2007 HHR with the Ecotec 2.2L engine. The timing chain tensioner failed, there was valve/piston contact and all the intake valves were bent and permanently wide open. So, I replaced all 16 valves, valve seals, head gasket, timing chain, chain guides and crank timing sprocket (the cam sprockets looked great so I used the old ones).

Well, I finally got everything put back together and tried to start it up Wednesday night. I could hear it “hitting” a few times on the first attempt but none after that. Same thing with last night. It “hit” a few times at first but after that it just cranks.

I am SO worried that this thing jumped time again and bent the valves. But, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case because I can feel air being sucked/blown pretty forcefully with my hand over the spark plug bore on all cylinders. Each cylinder is getting spark and fuel (I can smell the fuel on the spark plugs when I pull them and coming out of the exhaust).

What do you think? Are the valves not seating right? Bad springs? Bad spark? Freshly bent valves? That all seemed great while I had the head off. I can even hear the valves opening and closing with the spark plugs out and it sounds excellent.

I made a video of me trying to start it a couple of times along with a time lapse of me manually cranking the engine before I put the valve cover on. (See link above)

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

Welcome to the site, Seems the cams are not in time with the crankshaft.
Pop off the valve cover and timing cover, ensure you have TDC in #1 piston and that the cam sprockets line up.
Under no circumstances should you turn the crank counter clockwise or try and start the engine.

 

Did you activate the new tensioner"

Can you see ANY slack in the chain?

How do you know there is spark?

If the valves contacted the pistons there could be holes in the pistons.

Just to correct things; the tensioner did not fail; it over extended because the chain either broke or stretched past the tensioners limit, maybe a guide up and suddenly broke from wear. I bet you ignored the CheckEngineLight for a long time or misinterpreted the codes.

 

By the cranking noise on the video, it sounds like you may have a "dead" cylinder or 2.
I would suggest you do a compression check.

 

I had set the exhaust cam to the “intake diamond” rather than the “exhaust triangle”. My mistake. It’s been running great since I fixed it but this morning when I started it cold I could’ve sworn I heard some “chain slap”. I swear, if it didn’t activate that tensioner right I’m going to choke slam myself. Also, please ignore my work mess. I’m a very disorganized worker.

THANKS ANYWAY FOR THE ANSWERS! It just took a while for my post to show up so I had already found the problem.

P.S. The way I figured it out was by listening to the slow motion video. In theory I should hear/see the following:

1. Air rushing sound
2. Spark
3. Air rushing sound

But as you can tell from the video the spark preceded both air rushing sounds (compression and power strokes) so I knew it was close to 90° out of time.

Thanks again.

 

I know the new style timing chain tensioner will activate itself.
The old style, which some one line kits are still including need to be activated.

 

Well, the tensioner came from Cloyes and it’s the newest version. It came deactivated and I tested my method of activation by performing the method (just sticking a metal rod covered with electrical tape on top of the chain right over the guide and giving it several good/sharp pushes) and then removing the tensioner. It definitely was activated after that so I took it apart, reset it, put it back in and repeated the procedure. I’m pretty sure I checked by making sure I couldn’t slide the chain back and forth on the guide. Regardless, I’m thinking the sharp jolt on the guide of just starting the engine would “activate” the spring loaded function of the tensioner. Surely... The way I understand its function is that the spring is there to provide a minimum of tension when there’s no oil pressure.