Did I do this right? Compression Test Results

mdost03 · 08-07-2008

Alright, I have been having some problems with my car smoking at idle and after doing WOT pulls (floor to higher RPMS, switch gears and as soon as hit gas again, it puffs out smoke).

Finally bought a compression tester today and did a dry and wet test after the car was warmed up to operating temp.

Now, first question, I took all the spark plugs out of the head (instructions told me to) and disabled the coil pack and removed the fuel pump fuse. Was I suppose to remove all spark plugs at the same time or just remove one at a time? Or does that even not matter?

Onto the results, floored for each one and cranked about 6-7 times each cylinder (oil was spraying out of spark plug holes on some tests):

150 150 120 120 Dry
1 2 3 4 (Read from left to right on valve cover)
260 230 230 200 Wet (about 1 tbsp of oil before test in cylinder)

So does this mean my rings are FUBAR? Was told it had a MAP Stage 1 Shortblock rebuild about 15k miles ago only.

Ta_ser_t_s_x21 · 08-07-2008

When doing a compression test, you want to remove all plugs at the same time, if not, you could get faulty readings. If there would to be a head gasket leak, the cylinder would be compressed and the plug in the adjacent cylinder would plug the escaping air leaving the cylinder through the leaky head gasket, thus you would never know that there was a leak into another cylinder. Just for future reference.

Pushit2.0 · 08-07-2008

Adding oil to a motor with dished pistons just raises the compression ratio, a leak down test will tell you where the compression is going. It could be a problem with how your crank vents are hooked up or valve seals also. Turbos can leak oil also.

~John

mdost03 · 08-08-2008

Turbo is only 2 months old and I had this problem before getting the new one. This pic shows how my Kracka vents are hooked up:

So a leakdown test would tell me if it's the rings or not?