Friday night we went cruising down the beach front [which was awesome, btw] and it started running funny. it seemed to bog down whenever i would accelerate and just not want to go anywhere. i pulled over in a gas station to check all my fluids. i was low on oil, but not quite below the minimum. we added oil and it started running worse. so at this point i gave my boyfriend the wheel cuz i was tired of fighting with it. this was probably my mistake. i tend to baby my truck... he doesn't.. we must've burned a tank of gas that night.. it ran rough, but it made it.
next day we left early in the AM to head to the car show. running even worse. belts screeching and we could barely get the damn truck over 35MPH. we made it to the show, but rolled up the windows with my 5% tint to hide our faces from the horrible sound of the truck. lol my oil pressure light was blinking.. it would come on then when you would accelerate it would go off and only come back on once you let off the gas.
we checked my oil again. no change. we kept my truck there overnight and Sunday afternoon once the show was over my boyfriend drove it back to the hotel for me. by the time he got to the hotel it was starting to knock pretty bad. still, the oil was at the same level.
if anyone has any ideas about what happened i would love to hear them. i'm not enough of a gear head to try to tear apart an engine and rebuild, nor are my pockets deep enough to pay someone to do it for me
but, curiousity kills the cat also, what are some relatively easy swaps for these trucks? in case anyone doesn't know, i have the 94 2.4 EFI with standard tranny. all help and advice is greatly appreciated.. thanks in advance guys
) then a rebuild is probably not a bad idea becasue you have probably damaged your bearings (rod, main) etc. There are lots of crate motors available as well. You can make some serious power out of these I4's if you have the time, patience, and a bit of money to do it. If money is an issue then just stay stock. Keep in mind that a tear down of that 302 would be a smart move before you plunk her in - just a visual inspection of the heads and lower end. I would hate to see you do all the work just to pull it back out because it puked. Think suspension as well...What is the year of the "old 302?" I can tell you it is not the light version i.e. aluminum heads etc. Will you be able to compensate for the added weight with your current suspension setup? BTW - Your stock rearend will work if your pumping less than 300Hp through it. Any more than that and it would be anybody's guess on how long it would last. You would just need to modify your drive line to fit. 
