Chrysler Repair: Engine swap trouble, 2004 chrysler sebring, chrysler sebring

Question
QUESTION: I’m contacting you after browsing a lot of forums on the
internet, I am really desperate to fix my car and I would
have a few questions for you if you could please answer then
I will be very grateful!

So my car (2004 Chrysler Sebring, 1C3EL45RX4N114354) had a
knocking noise coming from the engine, basically the engine
has no oil in it when the knock started, found that out way
too late, the little bit of oil left was of a silver color
with some metal shaving. I decided to replace the engine. I
took my car to a local mechanic and he took me to buy a used
engine from the salvage yard(had to buy it myself and can’t
get it refunded). 3 weeks later, after finally putting the
engine in my car  he realized that my 2004 Sebring was
manufactured in 2003 and therefore had a Current Generation
Engine. And the car from the salvage yard had a Next Gen
Engine. He realized it because of the harness.

So he transferred the harness from my vehicle to the new
engine, he also told me that he replaced the cam gears and
timing chain. After 1 month and a half it still not working
properly and he ran out of options.

So my question would be: Is it possible to retrofit a Next
Generation Engine on a Current Generation car? And if it is
what are the parts that you have to transfer from the donor
vehicle and what part do you have to keep from the old
engine?

I hope you can help me with those question.
Thank you very much for your help!


ANSWER: Hi Thomas,
All I know about the NGC is that it combined the powertrain and transmission controllers into a single module. I am unaware of any thing specifically different about the engines in the different year  vehicles, but there could be somethings in the various senors or their harness plugs. If you can tell specifically what sorts of problems exist at present we might figure out a fix for what is wrong. What year vehicle is the donor from? I have the '04, 05, and 06 wiring diagrams so could compare them to see if I see difference. What is the displacement of the engines (I assume identical) but how many L?
Roland

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your quick answer Roland! I talked to my
mechanic again today and he explain the situation with a
little bit more detail. He replaced the tonewheel on the
donor engine with the old one, installed new cam gears,
change timing chain/tensionner. The engine start but will
die if he tries to rev it up. The donor engine is from an 04
sebring sdn (Next generation engine), my car is also an 04
sebring convertible (Current Generation engine).

Any idea what it could be?

Thank you very much!

ANSWER: Hi Thomas,
That doesn't sound like an insurmountable problem. Has he tried to readout the controller for engine fault codes? That would be the first thing to do.
It sounds like a problem with 'mixture' of fuel to air which is controlled by several sensors. One of those sensors could be faulty or it might be an 'open' wire. Usually such a problem sets a fault code. So let me know about that code readout question.
Roland

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you, I'm not very good about car mechanic, I'm just
trying to get out of that situation, I don't want to give
wrongly interpreted information, is there any way you could
speak directly to my mechanic over the phone to try to
troubleshoot the problem? If you're willing to do that I
could give you a fair amount of money to cover your time and
phone expenses.  If you are interrested I could give you his
phone number (I'm from OK by the way)
Thank you Roland!

Answer
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for the offer. Before doing that, please just read him my last answer and inquire about any diagnostic trouble (fault) codes. There could be a very helpful answer from such a readout. And it would be good to know if he got no fault codes, though ideally he should at least get a 1684 code which verifies that the readout was successfully completed. If we get into something technical I would be glad to correspond with him by email, and if he isn't connected to the internet, by telephone. I am in California and I could give you my phone number for him to call me.
Roland