So long story short I was driving for about 2 minutes right out of my driveway. Headed down the street and went to turn at the light. When I did the car felt like it lost power. Pulled over and removed the intake ports and sawl the passenger side valve cover had cracked. Now Ive had multiple people tell me different stories about a plastic piece gets caught on the teeth and it shoots out the timing chain to pop the cover. All I know so far is the engine still turns on, the timing chain still looks good and intact, and now there is a giant hole in my valve cover. I'm at the point trying to decide if I should get a professional to look at it and maybe it's salvageable or would I be wasting my money on a dead engine. Anything helps right now. I want to keep the car but I have no idea what it's going to cost and if it's worth it.

Yikes! Well, I do know that the timing chain guides are plastic and do tend to fail, but I've never heard of one shooting through the valve cover (that doesn't mean that it can't happen). If the engine still seems to run fine, which I would expect if the scenario is as you think it is, I'd have the timing chain, guides, tensioner, and valve cover replaced.