should be a real simple answer: On the way home, car started to have a knocking sound when I hit the throttle past 1000rpm. Temp slowly climbed to 235, got it into a parking lot and shut it off as it hit 240. Water was a tad low, engine was smoking. Small patch of oil on the underside of the exhaust pipe at the very bottom. Another thirdgenner stopped and helped me out with some water and opinions, and I drove it to his house down the road. He had a fully stock 2.8L as well and I couldn't keep up at all due to my car not having the power in it. Slight knocking sound past 1000rpm. We park it, it's back to 220F on the temp, smoking from the right side of the engine, still can't tell what it is. Letting it idle, we can hear the knocking very slightly. Cools down to 190F, I drive it home(another two miles) staying around 1000rpm or so, no knocking. It's cooled down entirely now, and at idle, I can't hear the knocking at all.

Rod about to go, you think? I'm afraid to take it out to see if the knocking comes back for fear it could throw a rod any second.

 

How's the oil pressure?

 

All I can tell you is that my dummy light hasn't gone off yet; the pressure may be in the hole and my sending unit is bad, or it may be fine. The car starts and runs alright(it seems a bit lopey), but I haven't driven it since I parked it this afternoon. I stick a giant pole onto the engine on top of the intake and listened over each cylinder, and it just sounds like a normal machine working, though there's a little bit of a grinding sound(not a whole lot). Truthfully, I don't know what I should be listening for aside from a very obvious knocking sound. I'm having a mechanic uncle(ASE, not a random backyard *******) come over tomorrow and tell me what he thinks.

EDIT: I just saw that r-e-d-n-e-c-k is censored! And I knew m-u-l-l-e-t was already, which is just as annoying... I'm a r-e-d-n-e-c-k with a m-u-l-l-e-t and I love my Southern Pride and Joy(Camaro)!

 

Just an update...

My uncle came over and toyed with it for a while...the rattle is from the PS pump going bad, the smog pump pulley also going bad, and something wrong with a valve. I picked up a compression tester to see which one it is, though.