EM1Guru

The car broke down going up a steep grade. It began to lose power similar to when you break a timing belt or burn a valve. I'm unsure why cylinder #3 looks different compared to the others. Is this oil or burning rich?

Ignore the oil in the coolant, that was from pulling the head off.

beecee18

Just bring it to your local machine shop or cylinder head guy to get his opinion after its inspected by him. As you would probably want or need at least some machine work before re-assembling the motor.
People here can tell you roughly how each hole is burning, but doesn't do anything with out proper inspection of your components, expecially with the vague description of your engine failure,
First thing that should be done is determine the actual cause of failure and go from there.

beecee18

Cylinder #2 looks like it is gonna be your problem hole,
No compression check before dis-assembling????

Looks like detonation/cheap gas? On the rest of the holes though

EM1Guru

the exhaust valves were gunked up, and weren't sealing correctly. the head has already been cleaned out and has new exhaust valves. im just perplexed as to why one cylinder came out "moist" (lolz) compared to the others. i couldnt tell if it was gas or oil, it wasnt really thick.

no compression check. i tried, but the rental tool was ****ed and almost got stuck in the head. kind of wished i just bought one.

Former User

You're at a severe disadvantage without checking cylinder compressions before removing the head, as well as checking the mechanical timing, spark and fuel, CEL codes, etc.

beecee18

EM1Guru

Should i do a compression test before starting it up? Or would it not matter at that point?

beecee18

All you would be doing at that point is confirming the work done to it, not the root problem so ya it wouldnt matter.
first off how did it blow, what is your setup/tune

And by all means stop running cheap gas chevron/shell/76 if your in cali and nothing else.

EM1Guru

the engine was a rebuilt b16a2. from the moment i got it back, it emitted a lean-like smoke out the exhaust during a cold start. the only thing i could think of at the time was that the injectors were the cause of the problem. i got the car back with the DX injectors, and swapped them out with the Si injectors, but that didnt stop the smoke. I had also changed out the strainer and the fuel filter, and it never changed.

it was an oem build, using a p2t ecu.

over time, The car developed a cel for misfire in cylinder 4. when i checked the plugs, 3 our of the 4 were covered in oil. i believe it couldve been the spark plug grommet gaskets. but never got a chance to change them out.

the car was slowly losing power after the cel came on. it finally gave out going up a steep grade. it began to decel similar to when you burn a valve or break a timing belt.

no cheap gas has ever been used on this car, so im really confused as to why my valves looked like that as well. the only thing i can think of is that the injectors need a good professional cleaning.

beecee18

I would first bring the cylinder head to a local shop and see what the verdict is.

Former User

What I was saying is that you should have done some fundamental diagnostic tests prior to disassembling the engine. It may now be difficult to pinpoint the problem with the engine disassembled if no problems are visually obvious/evident. You may need to reinstall the head and do diagnostic tests.