Well I did a compression test today on my car, and I read the minimal compression is 138. Mine was 100/120/117/118. How screwed am I, and what are my opinion?

 

do the test over and start from the other end first. make sure the battery is charged, the motor is hot and the throttle is blocked open.

 

has the car been sitting for a long time??

 

The bigger issue is that you have one cylinder that's reading considerably lower than the other three. Better get a leak down test done on at least that cylinder, because something is definitely wrong with it.

 

I retested all of them in different orders, all same numbers. Motor is warmed up and I had the throttle body open.

 

So how bad is it?

 

Could be rings, head gasket, valve seals, etc. Any way you slice it, something's not right.

 

Did you do a wet test? couple drops of oil in the cylinders.

 

if you have big cams it will lower your compression.

 

How big of a cam and how much will it drop it. I have some mystery Cam in my car that we can figure out what it is...

 

I couple drops of oil did bring up the compression.

 

Yes, but it should do it evenly on all four cylinders, so that still wouldn't explain why one cylinder is at least 15% lower than the other three.

 

How much? If quite a bit, then it sounds like your rings are toast in that cylinder.

 

Agreed. If you put oil in each of the low cylinders and the compression rises a decent amount. It is always the rings. Time to rip her up.

 

Ugh

So what are the major draw backs of having low compression, besides needing a motor overhaul...

I'm trying to stay positive and think that having my compression messed up is robbing my power so the car will be faster when its fixed This is correct right?