1998 Trooper driver side cylinders are not firing correctly?

Hey there. My wifes 98 trooper died on her while driving down the road. Brought it home and tinkered with a couple things and couldnt figure it out, i then took it to a mechanic around the corner and he couldnt figure it out. I took it to the dealership and they said that 3 things might be wrong.
1.timing jumped
2.camshaft broken
3.head is warped.
The thing has never overheated. So my question is basically if the 3 driverside cylinders are not burning fuel, what could cause this and has anyone else had similar problems?
I replaced the plugs (ion sensing) 15$ a pop (dealership) thankyou.''
OBD at dealership said no electrical problems (dealership) 180$ diagnostic, thankyou.''
Passenger side pressure on all 3 is 150 or so, driverside pressure is 50 or so.
The thing starts alright, runs for 2 minutes then goes to a real bad idle.

I think you're onto the source of the problem with your compression tests. 3
Passenger side holes at 150, 3 driver side holes at 50 tells me that you
have a problem that is valve related, and since the only way all three sets
of valves on one SIDE are connected is through one or both cams on that
head, I'd lean towards either a broken cam, a slipped cam drive gear (on the
belt), or both of them. You didn't say how many miles are on the engine, and
more importantly, is it possible this engine may have been starved for oil?
The reason I ask that is that my 98 (just like yours) has started burning
oil profusely since I drove it from Washington state to Florida, pulling a
2-ton trailer. I now get 300 miles to the quart - terrible. Engines like
these will most likely starve the cams first if the pump can't get enough
oil. If the cam starves, and one of the bearings start to seize, I think it
possible that it could cause the cam to slip in the belt or strip the belt
or jump. I'd pull the front of the engine off, and do a timing check on the
cams and timing marks. Follow that with an inspection of the valve train
(remove the cam covers and see what's going on in there. Doesn't appear to
be a vacuum problem - ie a damaged intake manifold gasket (another common
malady on these) nor an EGR valve problem (another common problem). Ask your
wife if she ran the truck out of oil. That may tell you something
significant.

It's too bad you dropped that much dough on the OBD test - Autozone will do
it for free. I think you got ripped off - I had a Isuzu dealership do that
for me for $35.00 before I knew about Autozone. I'm running standard old
Bosch Platinum 4 plugs in mine - with absolutely no problems. Others have
reported problems with non-Nippon Denso plugs (OEM version) but I've not had
any. My only 2 beefs with this 3.5 l engine is the terrible fuel mileage for
an engine that should easily be getting 18-20 mpg pushing a 4500 lb truck,
and the 300 mpq oil consumption at 70K miles.

Hope this helps. Sorry to bellyache about my Isuzu experiences, but I really
wish I had a 3.2 engine in mine. I won't buy another Isuzu - this last one
has fixed me.
r/
Steve

--
Stephen P. Reimers
Naval Salvage Officer
BMW Motorcycle Rider
"CaptainSensible" <UseLinkToEmail RemoveThis @AutoForumz.com> wrote in message
news:1_586479_35f0e8441ce773e8a88c71bd8472770d@autoforumz.com...
 > Hey there. My wifes 98 trooper died on her while driving down the
 > road. Brought it home and tinkered with a couple things and couldnt
 > figure it out, i then took it to a mechanic around the corner and he
 > couldnt figure it out. I took it to the dealership and they said that
 > 3 things might be wrong.
 > 1.timing jumped
 > 2.camshaft broken
 > 3.head is warped.
 > The thing has never overheated. So my question is basically if the 3
 > driverside cylinders are not burning fuel, what could cause this and
 > has anyone else had similar problems?
 > I replaced the plugs (ion sensing) 15$ a pop (dealership)
 > thankyou.''
 > OBD at dealership said no electrical problems (dealership) 180$
 > diagnostic, thankyou.''
 > Passenger side pressure on all 3 is 150 or so, driverside pressure is
 > 50 or so.
 > The thing starts alright, runs for 2 minutes then goes to a real bad
 > idle.
 >
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