Wrenched And Washed The Bird

"Birddog" (maintmgt)
10/18/2014 at 17:51 • Filed to: None

After putting her all back together she still runs like crap.. I'm pretty sure it's a dead cylinder now. I think the PO ran 87 octane at some point and blew a hole in a piston.

However, it runs well enough that I could rip up and down the block a few times.

This is the end of the block on my street. I can stop the car about 20 feet from that ball post, stand on the go pedal and swing her tail around a full 180 degrees (and more if I wanted to) without an issue.

After I parked her I just couldn't stop laughing. The tire smoke, the sweet song of the M90 at 15 pounds of boost and swinging 3700 pounds around like that is serious fun.

For a big girl she can sure shake her Tailfeather.

DISCUSSION (9)

Tohru > Birddog
10/18/2014 at 18:13

If it had a hole in a piston, you would know it. That would wreck havoc on the PCV system, there'd be clouds of oil smoke in the exhaust, and your intake would be full of oil - especially at 15psi boost.

Keep it simple, man. Pull all the plugs and do a compression test (tester available to rent/buy from AutoZone and O'Reilly's, among others). Check the plugs, wires, coil pack, and injectors. Check for coolant consumption and oil consumption.

I found out the replacement head from my Essex-built 2.0L SPI engine was bad by compression testing it and having it spray coolant out of the spark plug hole.