I've already told most of you, but I finally checked my compression. It was very confusing because both my turbo and my motor both screwed up at the same time... literally. I replaced the turbo, and that fixed the huge clouds of smoke at stoplights. I noticed smoke puffing out of the valve cover breather (pretty bad) and did a compression check:

1) 150
2) 131
3) 85
4) 125

ouch. #3 is bad enough as it is, but look at those other low numbers.. The motor has 196,000 miles on it now and I will be installing the fresh JDM ZC spring break. I just thought it would be informative if I posted an update for y'all.

BTW, could the #3 cyl have a really bad valve(or seal)? I smell GAS (yes, gas) in my oil catch can coming from the pcv system... what is going on here? I can't wait to tear this thing apart and see what 21,000 miles of boost has done to this old motor. I also kept hearing a "knocking" coming from the head somewhere... hmmm.

 

Low compression could be a number of things.
Certainly on a high mileage motor like yours, it could be valves. An old trick it to have the motor at TDC, force some air in there and do a listening experiment. If you hear air escaping from the exhaust, you have a bad exhaust valve. Ditto for the intake. If you hear the air escaping from the crankcase-you have bad rings, broken piston etc. I did this by hollowing out a sparkplug and putting apiece of tubing on it. Helped me id a few bad valves on MGs.
Erich

 

have a leakdown done too,
it's like what was mentioned above,
but you actually measure the percentage of air loss.

 

let me nkow if you need help on the motor install. i live in goldsboro. you live in new bern right?

 

Yeah, I live in New Bern... Before I swap in the zc motor and tranny, I will be working on the tranny first. I'm just putting in a longer 5th.

 

Blew my motor today as well, barely driveable, ------- pops like a mother ****** and cuts out when your arent on the gas, still drove it 25 miles to work and back lol, going about 15 and not stopping for redlights