Hey guys, long time lurker, infrequent poster here. I have recently decided to finally buckle down, do my reserch, and lay down a plan/budget for my turbo build.

First order of business is to make sure everything is working as it should, and completing all maintenance. I have done all your typical tune up stuff, switched over to full synthetic, fuel filter, plugs, wires, timing belt/water pump, etc. The next thing on my list was to run a compression test. This is for my 99 NB1 with 107xxx btw.

Anyways I warmed the car up for 15 minutes or so, pulled the wires/plugs, pulled the injector relay, pulled the fuel pump relay/harness? under the dash, pulled the plugs off the coil packs,(lots of pulling) wedged the TB blade open, and cranked away.

My Results were:
115
115
95
105.

Not good. However, the car pulls as hard as it should, and aside from a slightly spuratic idle from a crank angle sensor I need to replace, the car runs like a top.

What am I doing wrong? P.S i poured about a capfull of oil into cyl #3 and retested. Wound up with a 123 or so. Which would indicate bad rings, but in my experience, it would have jumped up much higher after adding the oil?

Idk. You guys are the experts so any input you have will be greatly appreciated. This isn't directly turbo related but from my "lurking" you guys know your stuff better than the guys on m.net and club ricer.

If I can get to the end of this, my next step will be to start clutch shopping. If my motor is toast, I'm going to sell the car as is and buy a low mileage NA.

 

I'd go ahead and proceed with positive manifold pressure plans but start putting money aside for build

 

Why can't you just tell me what I want to hear! lol kidding. However this is my current DD so I don't really have the ability to proceed, blow it up, and rebuild. Picking up a low mileage NA is looking pretty tempting. On a side note, the acronym for positive intake manifold pressure is PIMP. lol

 

Also I have one of those intermitten cylinder misfire codes. I'm dumb, that was probably important to my question. BHG between cyl 3/4?

 

Yup looks like majorly low compression on all cylinders.

 

do you have a wet test result for all 4 cylinders? try a leak down test to get a better idea of what may be wrong with the engine. Because those numbers are pretty low. But it also may just be you have a shitty compression tester.

 

^Bingo on the shitty compression tester. Thanks for all the input guys but as it turns out, the extension on my gauge was distorting the reading. Now have very healthy readings. Let there be boooooooost!