Hey everyone, I've got a bad feeling but I wanted to see what others are thinking. My son bought a 2005 Stratus SXT with a 2.7 FFV. When he got it, we had to tow it home because it was overheating. I replaced the heads with remanufactured ones and replaced the oil pump, water pump, timing set, crankshaft pulley, radiator, and more. Finally got it back together and started it only to discover that it sounds like a damn diesel. It's running smooth, but it's loud and has that diesel knocking sound. Not a typical pinging like you get from upper engine issues.

When I drained the oil and dropped the pan it was nothing but thick heavy sludge from the previous owners driving it with blown head gaskets and eventually warped heads.

Are my suspicions correct? Did flushing out the sludge and putting clean oil in the motor reveal rod knock? Oh, the car has just under 89,000 miles.