the needle was only going up a little (10 psi) each time the car was cranked for a couple seconds. had to crank it about 15 times before it got to 180 and it wouldn't go anymore. it would not drop quick or fall noticeably at all. it was like that with cylinders #1 and #3 (not as bad). #2 and #4 got up to 180 psi in four or five strokes. the car drives fine and motor idles fine...no smoke...vaccum reading at 19. the only thing is the car seems weaker than ever. the motor is stock b16 head/b18b boosting 8 psi. thanks for any advise and all that.

 

do you know the compression ratio of your engine?

from those id say 9 or 10 to one?

carbon and crap can affect compression build-up numbers i think...
(plus heaps of other things )

t..

 

i guess my compression according to the c-speed calculator is close to 9.5:1.

 

my guess would be that the problem is in the compression tester. You might want to try another one.

 

nah! not the tester - the tester!

sometimes when doing hte tests you do not achieve 100% sealing on hte spark plug holes so some times it wont crank up so fast but it will hold...

180's sound good for a 9.5:1 compression block.

why did you do hte test? any reason?

t..

 

i am going to have someone else do one with their tester and see what we come up with. yeah i was getting 180 eventually on all them. i did the test because my car seems weaker than it used to since i put the vtec head on my ls. it is still fast but not as fast as it usually was. it is no faster or quicker in the 1/8th mile and i even used 110 octane. i ran it the night before i attempted the test. but like i said...the idle couldn't be sweeter, no smoke even when i am running it hard, vaccum at 19. here's one, if my comression was low, would that translate into lowered but steady vaccum reading? because i have wondered what would be the cause if you had a low but steady vaccum? thanks a lot.

 

were you holding the throttle wide open when spinning it over? you should