A little help please, Car not running right Options

[Mikey914]

I consider myself somewhat mechanially inclined, but I'm not quite sure what I'm getting into.

The story: My son drives his 1.7 over the pass to Redmond (about 150 miles), car has been runnign great, goes to leave last sunday, gets some gass on the way out. About 4 miles down the road car starts loosing power, sounds like it's not running on all cylinders.

I had my father inlaw drive it over to a local shop that knows little about 914s, and have been told that the engine needs to be rebuilt. I have yet to talk to the shop, but this is the story I've gotten second hand, I'll be calling tomorrow.

My thinking
As it's not smooking, and it's not banging around like a valve dropped, is that it's down to air, fuel or spark

Air- don't think this is an issue as it runs partially

Fuel - could be an injector problem, but my son did mention that it backfires like ther was unburnt fuel in the exhaust, so I'm thinking it's probably spark.

Spark- I was hoping that it was a plug wire grounding out and that the shop would check it, simple fix. It still may be that, or a plug that has broken.

I plan to start the car and pull plug wires until there is no change when I remove one, If it's not the wire (I'm going to replace all) the pull plugs and replace.

This is a stock 1.7, are there any other things I should be on the look out for?

Any feedback is appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Mikey914]

WOW, really not what I expected. Decided to grab a car trailer and drive over to pick up. Glad I did. Just got the motor dropped and the head pulled. Noticed alot of oil that appeared to be dripping out of the push rod seals.

Got it apart and found one of the push rods had been completely severed. It happened to be an intake. Apparently the intake did not open and sucked oil in past the piston rings and started forcing it out the bottom of the head between the jug and head. It was still running.

My question is what would cause this kind of wear? (see picture below)

I think it was because the valves were not adjusted when the motor was installed, and the valve lash wore it down????

Should I just replace the push rods, and pop on a new head (both sides of course)?
Or, is the a symptom of something internally wrong?