Hi All-

The Car: 1993 960 2.9L I-6 Auto Wagon 150,000 miles

History: I had lost compression in cylinder #4 about 2 months ago. During my spare time I tried various 'non-invasive' means of correction. Seafoam and the Italian tune up. At this time, the car would hold an idle and drive (I took it on the highway for the tune up).

Then I tore into it and removed the head. The only incident that happened was I forgot to remove the exhaust cam shaft sensor on the back of the engine when I went to remove the upper head. This broke the sensor, but didn’t damage the head. Upon inspecting of the head, I found that both exhaust valves had sizable holes in the base. Due to lack of funds, I bought only those two valves and seals and had a shop install them for me. The shop also planed the head, as they said it had warped a tiny bit and could use it.

I installed all the bits. Put in new head bolts and the new camshaft sensor. I kept track of where the timing marks were by using white out on the belt and pulley for the two cam pulleys and the crank. I’m sure that nothing moved. Although the method of attaching the cam shaft pulleys is a bit baffling to me... tighten two screws and then release the tensioner, and then the third? That's what I did, but it still doesn’t make sense to me.

I did a compression check. number 4 is a bit low (by 20 psi) of where it should be, but I figure that's a big improvement over the 0 PSI it posted before.

I go to start it and right away can tell something is different. While it seems to idle 'smoother', the engine is very loud. I think that I don't have a good seal on the exhaust manifold to pipe interface, as there is a lot of noise coming from that area. However, what bothers me more is that if I apply gas, it revs up 'ok', but then dies (stalls) when I release the gas. It also seems to hunt a bit during idle.

To me, it seems like maybe I’ve forgotten to plug something in, or some signal is not getting to the controller. (Maybe the replacement camshaft sensor is a dud?) But I am not sure how to check them. It is also possible that the throttle cable might have been played with by my son when I wasn't looking. How should this be adjusted? Is it possible it is just too loose?

I know this is a lot, but I just spent the past 24 hours putting all this together and need to take a break before tearing back into it or else I’ll get frustrated. Does anyone know where I should begin to look? There is an OBD1 diagnostic code thing for signals I found in the FAQ but I can't seem to get it to work at all (like I don't know which pin to plug it into).

Thanks guys
-Jim P.