Hello everyone,

I've looked everywhere trying to find a fix but this car has me puzzled. Ok I start by sayin that my engine blew so I built a LR 2.4 for my Evo 9. Anyway the engine has Manley TT 156mm rods, wisco 1400, ACL race bearings, stock crank, gsc valves,springs,cams, stock Evo 9 timing belt, AEM exhaust adjustable cam gear. And all the supporting mods. Anyway last week I finally put the motor back in the car and started the car. Car ran like crap I had to keep revving it to keep it from stalling. Once the car warmed up it idled on its own but would fluctuate up and down.on I itial start I got the P0106 which is the manifold absolute pressure sensor. Anyway I cleared the code and that was it no more check engine light. My initial though was that old fuel in the lines are causing the fluctuation. Drained all the fuel out and put fresh fuel in the tank still ran the same. All the running is only idle I still haven't broken in the engine so there is 0 drive time on the new motor. So this morning I pulled the plugs out cylinder #1 was brand new Like its not firing.#2 was all black, #3 was little less black and #4 looked somewhat ok. Anyway asked few people and was told it could be a leaky injector so next step I pulled all the injectors out cleaned them using seafome and a hillbilly injector cleaner with 40psi air and 12v supply ram seaphome through everything good no leak. Car still ran crappy. So next step was to do a compression test. Well I was shocked at the compression test. Cylinder #1 was 0, #2 was 92 #3 was 55 and #4 was 30. With that said I'm not sure what to do. Before I put the engine back in the car I did a leak down test on the car and it was staying in the green which I was told it's good for an engine that's not broken in yet. I am completely lost and have no idea what to do next. I am really hoping that my timing is off and that's what's causing it. I have the exuahgst cam retarded -3.75 and due to no oil pressure I pulled the mivec gear all the way to the left and timed it that way. Not sure if that was the correct method or not. Please help me out guys here is some picture of the spark plugs just to give you guys an idea. Sorry for the long post. Let me know if anybody needs further information. Thanks in advance

 

That compression is the culprit.
Now you need to figure out why and were your losing compression by doing a leak down test.

More then lilely will be leaking from valves.
Might be bent or not fully closing. Could be spring rate issue or hydraulic lash adjuster issue.

 

Is the head torqued ?
Is it timed right ?
Are the rings in the correct orientation ?
Are the valves seating properly ?
How's the ring gap ?

 

Well te timing was done at the machine shop which was degreed I called few reputable go shopd and was told you can not degree new mivec engine because there is no oil pressure in the mivec cam and that you're only degree in the exhaust cam. So I bought an AEM gear and retard it -3.75 on the exhaust.

The shop assembled the engine so I hope the rings are in correct orientation.

As far as valves I think they are because the valves, guides were are replaced and are brand new.

The ring gap was set at wisco recommendation .

In really hoping it timed wrong. A leak down was done before the engine was put back in the car and was showing good numbers being it being brand new and the rings were not broken in either. So I'm not sure what's happening. Please help me out I'm lost at this point. Here are some pictures of the timing whil the engine was out of te car.

 

i have a machine shop. couple days ago a customer toke his evo 9 cylinder head. everything looked good but he said it was smoking. the head looked recently done (not by us) so we went ahead and checked everything. valves where good but we notice all the seals were really really bad they had no silicon top no more. they said they had taken to change the valve guides and yes the guys are to high when we put on new seals springs where really close to them. so when it was going to do the same thing right after starting the car up. so you mention you changed your valve guides.

 

Yes the the valve and the vale guides were replaced also the valve seals everything now the head beside the lifters is GSC even the valve stem seals. My car is not smoking it feels like it's running on 2 or 3 Cylinders. thank for the responses guys keep them coming hopefully I can figure this out. It's been way too long since I last drove my car

 

Do you have gsc 0 tick lifters? Ive seen them cause this **** numerous times on here.

 

No. I have OEM but I'm not sure if the shop bled them or not. I even asked them to do it.

 

Bump for some help

 

You need to do a leak down and see were your compression is going.