Hey Ryan
As far as your timing chain goes, search around on here for the steps to remove your timing chain guides (I think I have a link in my sig). the top guide is really easy but it probably won't solve your noise... You'll most likely have to take off part of the face of the motor to get to the other guide.
And the hesitation from 1-4k I had a similar problem and it turned out to be a bad knock sensor harness which threw a code 34. Any time the computer throws this code, it pulls timing and the engine feels sluggish as hell. I would advise you pull the codes off your ECU to see what it has to say
GL
|