Congratulations on the car. Did you get the poor compression sorted out? What was causing that?

 

Thanks!

I actually did get the compression issue sorted out, the leak down test was actually good, the piston rings were fine. The issue was the compression on the valve seats. My mechanic ran some kind of a cleaner hey he uses on the BMW’s because they use direct injection.

it was kind of frustrating in the beginning but because he adjusted the valve lash and we had hoped that that would fix it but he said the valves weren’t that far out of adjustment. So once we saw that the valves weren’t bad we decided to go ahead and try to clean those valve seats with that solution that he uses on the BMWs.

I ended up getting a standalone ECU

and a tune on it and when it’s all said and done I’m putting 225 to the wheel which is good enough for now

 

What are the compression numbers now? Leakdown? How do the plugs look?

Sadly, valve burning is actually a pretty common problem with DBW s2ks. If you stay on top of them they are fine. But, they tend to tighten up quite a bit over time. Maybe it was caught in time. Sounds like the prior owner may have discovered tight valves, and adjusted them in the past, which would explain why the gaps were ok when you got in there.

Sure is pretty. Enjoy!

 

I want to say before we did the valve cleaning and I was sitting right about 180 psi across all four cylinders. After the cleaning it got to be around 250.

I’m not sure on the leak down, he just said that it was fine. The spark plugs surprisingly looked OK.

The fuel injector clips were worn out, and I need a new ones of those. The clutch master cylinder was leaking, the TCT is still running good but I did need an alignment. When the guy put the coil overs in he didn’t get an alignment, he just slammed it so it was very bad.

What else...oh needed a heat shield for the battery and the valve cover gasket was leaking, serpentine belt was cracked and the tensioner pulley bolt was almost backed out totally. Needed rear axle spacers also, needs the boots too but I’ll get to that later. New pads and rotors with steel lines. Flushed all fluids of course.

 

Sounds like you are fine to me. I like the fact that the compression is even across the board. That is good.