I have a 2001 Protege MP3 2.0l DOHC with only 80,000 miles on it...

My motor has made a tick for about 9 months now. I contributed it to the fact that i ran it low on oil at one point... You only hear it tick when it reaches about 3000 rpms. If you get to about 4,500 and let off the gas, the ticking goes away.

While on the free way this morning the ticking ran a lot louder than normal for a half second. The minute I heard this I pushed in my clutch and the engine shut itself off. I pulled over, tried restarting it about 5 minutes later and it wont start. It turns over but wont start.

Now that ive gotten it home (on the back of a truck), ive checked my timing belt, still in tact. Ive checked compression, each cylinder has the same compression.

Has anyone heard of this, or know what is going on with my car?

 

hmm.. Very interesting. So I took a look at my motor with my father and he claims the engine is trash. When there are no spark plugs installed and you crank over the motor, each cylinder shows the same compression and sounds like they turn over fine. The minute you add spark and combustion to the equation, you get a load banging sound from what sounds like only one cylinder.


It seems to me like I may have just bent a valve or something. If thats the case, would this be something that can be fixed with a new set of valves and parts? Or does this mean that ive totaled my motor?