Timing belt in a 96 Dodge Neon 2.0, Interference motor?

[Jester90rs]

Hello all.

My girlfriends 96 Dodge Neon just threw it's timing belt. 96 Neon, 2.0 SOHC motor. Is this an interference type motor? I've found conflicting information online. Do you pretty much have to pull the head to check for damage? Can you just take pressure off the valves and do a compression test?

[rice_eater]

I'm pretty sure the 2.0L SOHC is an interference engine. In order to do a compression test, you'll have to crank the engine... something you dont want to do with the valves dropped, or if one or more of them is bent/broken. Right now you're probably only looking at new valves and a new headgasket (plus labor, if you cant do the work yourself), but if you start bashing a broken valve around in your combustion chamber, you'll probably need new pistons and a new head as well. If you cant do the work yourself, you may want to consider simply replacing the engine if it has valve damage, since labor costs are going to equal or exceed that of a new-used engine. n-gin and RadarLove are the mechanical masterminds on this forum, maybe they'll have some more info for you.

[RadarLove]

Definitely interference... firsthand experience, unfortunately...

There have been freak exceptions where there was no damage to the valves, but in most cases, it's all of them. A couple of the valves on mine looked fairly normal, but when taken out and rotated, you could see the deflection. We never bothered to do a compression test, just pulled the head and checked the pistons for damage, which were fine. The head was warped (lots of recent overheating), but we opted to mill it down (a LOT) rather than hunt around middle Virginia for a used one over the christmas/new year holidays (10.5:1+ compression on the stock cam, PCM, and pump gas anyone?... bad idea in retrospect...).

You can take the head off and down to a machine shop to check for flatness. They can mill it, but all the valves should be taken out (by you, unless you like paying for the labor), and you can sometimes find a head for less than what it would cost to do just the machine work.

You can find rebuilt heads on ebay for a decent price. I don't check the classifieds here very often, but other forums (neon specific) will often have a used head in good shape for under $150, including the cam. The '95 head is a little different, so you're better off with any '96-'05 head, as long as the EGR port is there (2000-up did away with the EGR system, but the heads usually had the port, just blocked off). you can even put a magnum head (2001-up ACR or R/T) on there, but many of those didn't have the EGR port drilled, and you'll have a little issue lining up the exhaust ports with the stock exhaust manifold. PM me if you'd like a link to the classifieds I mentioned.

If all you need is valves, you can get them from a discount dealer (www.dodgeparts.com) for a decent price (under $250 for the whole set). As you can see, a good used head is looking pretty good... Your cam will swap over fine, it stands very little chance of damage.

My guess is the car was at or near the recommended interval of 105k miles for a timing belt change. The water pump has the same interval. If the water pump fails (easy enough after 100k miles), you're going to be in the same situation you are now... it's driven by the timing belt. www.boogerracing.net should still have a how-to on doing the timing belt on a SOHC. Jeff may have included a little info on doing the water pump as well, don't remember. You'll have to rent/borrow/buy a special tool or two, but it's a weekend job at most. You can reuse the head gasket, technically, but I wouldn't. And the head bolts are not meant to be used again.

If you do all the work yourself, changing out the head for a used on in good shape, new timing belt, new water pump, new head gasket, and new head bolts, you could do the job for $500-600. Take it to a shop and you're looking at more like $2500-3000.

Best of luck!

[Jester90rs]

Thanks for the replies guys. Looks like you're right. I got the head about half pulled after work tonight. #3 doesn't hold any pressure, but 1 2 and 4 seem alright by the highly technical and exact "hold your hand over the spark plug tube and crank it" method. If I'm really lucky It'll just be one valve I can swap out....but I doubt it. I'm gonna decide after I get the head off and look if it's worth fixing or not. Probably not.

Anyone want a cheap pink Neon in Florida?