im thinking about buying my friends 92 galant vr4 for 2k, problem is, it burns 1qt oil every 500miles
he said it leaks out of the front of the crank (previous owner did balancer eliminator)
and he said 1 cylinder the 2 exhaust valves are soaked in oil.
runs fine, but is a smoke machine.

he said worst case, needs head
are there any cheap stock heads around? or anything that would fit?

i know nothing of these cars

If you know nothing about these cars then know this, you will have to work on it. That one sounds like it needs a good bit of work right off the bat. I'd keep looking unless you are very much mechanically inclined.

its the only one in my area obviously lol
i had been planning to buy it for a while but like i said he just told me this earlier

so im assuming a headswap is harder than on a miata? i just sold a miata to buy this

as for the difficulty compared to a miata, I have no idea, never attempted on a Miata, but I know a head swap on these cars isn't very difficult, just have to make doubley positive when you put it back on, you get the timing set RIGHT. It's got a few more sensors and lines than a miatas head, being turbo and all, but if you take your time and have good directions, I don't see why it would be a huge factor in choosing not to buy it if you already know about it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

EDIT: and if the exhaust valves are soaked in oil, it could just be the valve seals, which you don't have to pull the head to replace (if you have the tool)

well he told me the previous owner replaced the timing belt wrong and hit the valves, he doesnt know if he just replaced the valves or anything like that.
so he said worst case is head, but he thinks its just hte seals

also what about the crank? he said something about a balancer eliminator or something

Does it run ok right now? Aside from the smoking of course, lol. If so, I don't think that'd be real valve damage, otherwise it wouldn't run very well at all. The balance shaft elimination is something I myself am not TOO familiar with, but I believe if it's leaking, it'd be leaking on the left? side if your looking at the engine with the timing belt closest to you... Whichever side the belt went to, the other side is rotated by the oil pump. The side with the belt usually just has a plug that you replace the shaft and pulley assembly with, it may have just been installed wrong or poorly. Again, I can't speculate much more on that because my motor still has the balance shafts, so I don't have any personal experience with that.

He may have not sealed one of the bolts properly doing the balance shaft elimination (removing the bs tensioner pulley, you have to seal the bolt you put back in to prevent leaks), or the plug for the hole left from the front balance shaft may be leaking.

Yeah, I would say plug or lack of rtv on that bolt. Either one is an easy fix, but that may not be the problem. How fast is the leak? If it's kind of fast and that bolt is pretty snug it's probably not a lack of rtv. Taking off the timing cover is easy, and it should show you where it's leaking from.