Im doing compression check on a h22 engine except the engine is out the car and not wired in. Ive been turninig the engine over using hand tools and am getting really low figures on all cylinders. Before I go assumimng its the piston rings is there anything I might be doing wrong? Is compression lost if the engine is cranked by hand?
Ive had a starter motor arrive for it today so Im assuming I can hook this up whilst the engine is on the pallet, use it to crank the engine & hopefully get better results.

Any pointers would be appreciated

 

I have also blocked any stray vacuum pipes incase this is causing some kind of pressure leak

 

Bump for an answer

 

You won't get any usable compression test with out a starter.You could do a leakdown test but those are not very reliable on a cold stored engine.

 

To get good results, you want to do a compression test on a warm engine, and crank it faster than you can by hand. In the meantime, you still want to see consistent results across all cylinders, but don't expect to get high numbers doing it that way.

 

Brilliant thanks for the replies! i'll bolt up the clutch, gearbox and starter this eve then crank it over

 

I got the test done today using the starter motor and the throttle butterfly jammed open. This is for a H22A engine.

The results were:-
Dry Wet
Cyl 1 150 190
Cyl 2 230 250
Cyl 3 230 260
Cyl 4 250 270

Im guessing cylinder number 1 has either a faulty valve or piston ring, can anyone with a bit more experience enlighten me on this using the table of results?