What's up people!! I've got a 2002 cavy with the ecotec motor and manual trans. My problem is that sometimes when coming to a stop and i push in the clutch pedal the rpms dip real low for a few seconds almost as if the car is going to stall out and then the rpms go back to normal. What would cause this?? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

it might not be ur clutch or anything to do with ur trans. check ur injectors

Yeah that is a possibility. I was thinking it could be the clutch pedal position sensor or that something with the clutch was on its way out? Although it only does it randomly. The car was unregistered for a couple years due to health issues and was not driven. So it very well could be something with the injectors. Should i throw some fuel injector cleaner in with the gas? Let me know what u think. And thank you for your quick response back.

Check your iac. Could be dirty.

Yep, mine used to do that sometimes and cleaning out the IAC passage would fix the problem but this last time it didn't work. It was a timing chain guide being broken, I wrote more detail if you want to read in Michaelo's post on surging idle.

I was gonna say the iac or the tps....the tps can also stick and give u the same problem as the iac

Ok so i planned on removing the iac tomorrow to clean it out
But today i got out of my car while it was still running and heard a rattling noise under the hood. So i popped the hood to find the noise coming from the pass side of the car. And it was right near the valve cover /timing cover area. Does this mean that i need to replace the timing chain and all other associated parts I/e tensioner,guides,etc. Also if so does anybody know how much of a project this is to do myself?? Again any help on this is appreciated. Oh and is it safe to keep driving it with the rattling noise?? Thanks again for any help.

That's kinda common. 02 ecotec had alot of problems with this. I thought gm actuallly recalled or had a service bulletin about it. Either way I wouldn't drive it till its fixed if /when it breaks or jumps it'll kill the motor. It's a job but its doable remove motor mounts accessories cam cover timing cover ect. Buy a Hilton book and go to town and don't buy cheap partaking get the best for this lord knows you don't wana do it again

Uhhhggg, that sucks. Not exactly what i wanted to hear. Does anyone know what company/brand i should go with for the timing set? And does anyone know where to get it as cheap as possible? . Money is tight, but also can't afford to blow my motor. Also does anybody have pics of the replacement of the timing chain on the ecotec motor? Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!!

I'm sure YouTube will have a vid. Oreillys is probably your best bet if you have one in your area

redoing all the timing isnt very hard its just making sure everything is in time just perfect and all the bolts are tightened properly

Ok i've gotta get this done asap then. But what bolts do you mean that need to be tightened properly?? And i don't have to pull the motor out of the car to do this job right?

You don't need to pull the motor, you will need a jack, You can jack up the engine after removing the top motor mount to get to the hard to reach bolts towards the top and lower it down to get the bolts torwards the bottom. Some tools you will need you might not have are a 24mm wrench for turning the camshafts and a 32mm socket for taking the tensioner out. Make sure the tensioner pops out when you put it back together otherwise you will have slop in your chain and be back to square one, my kit came with the old style tensioner so I had to pop mine out, the new style works different so you will need to know which one you get.

The things I had the most trouble with were getting the splashguard off and loosening the harmonic balancer bolt. It isn't too bad if you take your time and put things back together in the order the manual says.

yeah its not hard me and a friend tore the motor apart in like a night and the next day put it back together and we didnt even work the full day b ut if ur by urself to where you dont have a second set of eyes, make sure you take pictures or have a really good memorie

Ok good to know. Thanks guys. I have a couple more questions. 1. Do i need a puller/installer to remove the crank pulley. And secondly i found a step by step instruction on how to do the job on autozone.com and it said that after putting exhaust cam sprocket on to use a 24mm?? .wrench to turn that cam until the cam sprocket lines up with the cam. What does this mean aknowind how much do i have to turn that cam so i don't do any more damage??? Again thanks for your help.

No the crank pulley(harmonic balancer) pulls off after removing the bolt. The cams have a spot on them for that fits a 24mm wrench. Put your engine at TDC, easiest way is to put the key way on the crank at 12 o'clock. You can do this by rotating the crank after putting the bolt back in or by moving the cams with the wrench. If it is in time now you should be able to take it apart and the cams will be about where they are supposed to be. You aren't going to damage your engine if you are turning it over by hand, you'll be able to tell if you hit the valves on a piston when turning it over by hand. Unless you get crazy and try to force it over you won't bend any valves. Turn it over by hand a few times so you know what it feels like normally. Also remove the spark plugs so it will turn over easier. If you have your engine completely out of time and have the chain off, you just simply move the cams to where the valves are closed. I put the engine at TDC, key way at 12, moved the cams so the valves were closed, I then lined the mark up on the intake cam with the chain, then the mark on the crank, then I moved the intake cam to take out the slack in the chain between the cam and the crank, I wedged a screwdriver and wooden shim to hold the intake cam in place so it wouldn't release the slack, then I lined up the timing mark on the chain with the gear on the exhaust cam, Then I rotated the exhaust cam until the gear fit into it's spot on the cam and tightened it up. You'll have to turn the cams less than a 1/4 turn. That is how I did it by myself, it is probably easier with a second set of hands and make sure you have the guides installed first, I'm sure your directions tell you the steps to put it back together.

Ok great. Now when u said to get the motor at tdc by putting crank keyway at 12o'clock that is with the timing cover off correct? And by doing this the intake cam gear should be at 2o'clock and exhaust gear at 10o'clock? And one more question can the timing cover gasket be reused or does that need to be replaced? Thanks again for everyones help and input.

You can't really see the crank keyway until you take off the timing cover. If it is still in time and you move the keyway to 12 then the intake should be around 2 and the exhaust should be around 10, don't worry if they move when you take the chain off as they may. You can't check the timing with the marks, so don't try lining them up to see if it is in time on the old set, they only hit the marks once every hundred or so times, so you'll just be wasting your time turning the engine over and over and over again, besides you have a new set anyway. If you don't tear the old gasket taking the cover off you can reuse it, if you are anal you should change it and the manual probably says to, but it is made of rubber and is ok to reuse, if you are going to worry about a drop of oil coming out here and there then you'll want to replace it but the old one should be good enough to seal it up. I still put a light coat of RTV on my gasket when I put it back together. For what it seals it shouldn't really leak anyway. Use the old one because you can or get a new one because the manual says so. It's up to you. I don't have any leaks and I reused mine.

So if the cams or cam gears move when taking the chain off after i remove the cam gears to replace the chain. Should i just put the gears back on again at 10and2? Or will the timing be off if i do that? And also i've got the new style tensioner that i'm gonna install. My question is how do i activate the new tensioner after screwing it in and torquing it properly? Oh and i forgot to mention that all i'm replacing is the chain, tensioner and upper camshaft guide. Do the old cam gears even need to come off if i'm not replacing them?

I thought you bought the timing set kit ? Why aren't you replacing everything ? You should replace all the gears when you put a new chain on so it all wears together. You can't just line the chain up at 10 or 2, you have to line the marks on the chain up with the dot on the crankshaft gear, intake diamond, exhaust triangle. If you think you are going to leave everything in place and just put a new chain on you would be wrong. Something is going to move and i thought you weren't sure if it was in time anyway. There are no marks on the block just the colored links on the chain, so you have to line it up that way, it isn't hard, and once you do it you'll see it just all goes right into place. Once you have it apart and put it back together you'll see you worried more than you needed to.

here is a thread about the tensioner.
http://www.ecotecforum.com/forums/showthread.php?15056-ecotec-chain-tensioner

No i only bought those three. As i said before money is tight. So as far as the keyway on the crank, do you mean the dot on the gear needs to be at 12o'clock or something else? Sorry for all the questions i just don't want to mess anything up.

The keyway at 12'oclock puts the engine at TDC, it also puts the timing dot at 5 o'clock were it needs to be.

Ok so i just did the timing chain, chain tensioner and also replaced the fixed timing chain guide /because it was broken. I lined the chain up with all the marks and after putting everything back together started the car and it ran great. Let it run for a while to make sure everything was ok. I shut the car off to go clean up and came out about ten minutes later to leave and had a hard time getting the car to start?? Got it started after about 15 seconds of cranking and it ran fine. I drove it down the street and when i pushed in the clutch to come to a stop the rpms dropped pretty low for a few seconds and felt like the car was going to stall. After about five seconds of doing this the idle went back to normal. I don't know what would be causing my car to do this. Also i should mention that it usually does this after the car has been running for a while and is fully warmed up. Any help or input would be greatly appreciated. I'm stumped!!! Also did it again today with the idle and it did stall. Had a hard time starting after took about 15-20 seconds of cranking to start it.

I had the same symptoms as well as very high rpm fluctuations during driving, ( car would rev up between 2000-4000rpm while driving). car eventually stalled regularily when coming to a stop. i had been driving the car for a few months with a leaking fuel tank. as long as i didn't fill the tank past 3/4 no leak. was broke so didn't fix it. my issue was evap related. a fuel smell with no visible leak was what first lead me to suspect the evap system. maybe you have a similar issue.

I had the same symptoms as well as very high rpm fluctuations during driving, ( car would rev up between 2000-4000rpm while driving). car eventually stalled regularily when coming to a stop. i had been driving the car for a few months with a leaking fuel tank. as long as i didn't fill the tank past 3/4 no leak. was broke so didn't fix it. my issue was evap related. a fuel smell with no visible leak was what first lead me to suspect the evap system. maybe you have a similar issue.


i should have written this first but the most likely thing is your EGR valve. you can remove and try to clean it. or replace. its probably sticking. a friend had that issue.


james