Probably broke my engine today. Good news is I toasted the BMW M3 by 5 car lengths to 110mph, Bad news is I think I toasted my rings too. Compression w/ engine warm:
#1) 173
#2) 175
#3) 169
#4) 105dry took 10 cranks to get there
#4) 155wet took 3 cranks (w/ 1 cap of oil added)

My engine treated me to a nice oil bath too... smoke pouring out of engine and off brake rotors :) Apparently the crankcase breather let loose with about 3/4 a quart of oil through the catchcan filter, at enough velocity to hit the firewall. The turbo oil return gasket also finally blew, and coated the block.

Questions:
1) What would cause such a huge buildup of oil pressure both at the oil return gasket, and out the crankcase? I've run this hard before, and only got a couple teaspoons of oil in the catchcan, and only a few drops out the oil return gasket.

2) Can I drive (carefully & no boost) with these compression numbers, until my rebuild parts come in?

3) There was a weird rust orange powder covering some of my spark plug boots, and puffing out the plug wells during the compression test. Anyone ever seen that?

4) How do my plugs look? They look ok to me, but #4 is maybe a little lighter than the others... Lean? #4 injector clogged?

5) Diagnosis? Rings? Cracked piston? Just rebuild and find out?

Pics of everything here:
http://www.signal11.com/~thedawg/car/blowby/

Big thanks in advance. Enjoy the pictures heheh...

Gee.. that looks pretty familiar. It'd be willing to bet you cracked a piston.

What could cause that much oil pressure? Think about it - you're basically sending boost right past your piston into your crankcase, which pushes oil out everywhere it can.

damn that sucks bro...

thedawg
How much boost were you running?!

Only 7.5 lbs... could never boost any higher... I have a stock GST exhaust tho, and HRC "strongly recommends" that you upgrade the exhaust. I know my exhaust is a restriction because I blew off my (unwelded, just clamped on) downpipe once while racing a honda... heheh

Doubt that'd break a piston or ring, I'm pretty sure theres a fuel (or possibly oil?) starvation problem in the #4 cyl... every once in a while I get mad knock for no reason while boosting, Fuel is ok, A/F is good & rich .92, and ignition timing isn't being pulled **in cyl #1**... but it's clear something's up with #4.

I've been getting blowby since I put on the kit. Just never a whole quart at velocity. RRE tested compression before the install and it was 170 across the board. Probably broke it while tuning (had huge fuel problems at first) and it's been leaking since. HRC and RRE said blowby was completely normal "It means you've got a turbo"... so I never ponied up and bought a compression tester until now. Didn't realize they were only $30 at Kragen (stupid)

oh shit Dan. You animal. WTF did you do to your poor car. Hey atleast you beat the M3 right...:P

Yeah it suck ass that the motor finally let go. I guess you been after that rebuild for a while now.

Let me know if I can help out.

Big Robert was probably the one that tuned your fuel system....:P I still remember that big paper sign " Do not start engine, fuel problem" when you car was at RRE for the turbo install.

kaiser

eclipsekaiser@aol.com