I hope, for his sake... you are right.

I've just seen too many of those little engines with zero clearance on the compression stroke have a bunch of bent valves and valve shaped divots in the top of the pistons.

The engines in the '92 Saturns are in fact interferece type engines, so a bent valve is a possibility and is easy enough to check if you have an air compressor. To save a little time you can let it run and kill each cylinder one at a time by pulling off the spark plug wire and listen for which one(s) make it stop back firing through the throttle body. If the cylinder is running properly it should just lower the idle speed with the wire is off. If you find that the back firing stops that way then put the specific cylinder at TDC (Top Dead Center) on the compression stroke (valves should be closed) by turning the crank pulley by hand(easy to tell when it's at the top with the spark plug out and putting a screwdriver in the hole). You can then blow shop air into that cylinder through the spark plug hole and see if you hear air coming out of the throttle body. If you do you have a bad intake valve (out the tail pipe for an exhaust valve). They make a special tool for blowing air in there, but with a little creativity it's easy to rig one up. The only way to repair a bent valve is by replacement and the cylinder head gotta come off. Before doing that though, make sure the timing chain didn't slip or was put in wrong.