originalmystro
New member
So its been a while since I have had an all-trac and recently came upon a ST185 that I couldn't pass on being that there was no rust or damage other than a small dent and some faded paint. The car had been robbed of its Willwood brakes which is sad and also the exhaust, steering wheel, air conditioning and a few other small items. I also had to replace the smashed rear glass but overall it was a good price for finding one with no rust in this area. The car only has 125XXX KM on the odometer but the owner said he never could get it to run and that the previous owner had installed a Autronic engine managment system and a few other things.
After going through the electrical and finding the cause of the no start I did get it running and it sound like a muscle car probably because there's no exhaust only a downpipe. The engine was completely sealed off for storage which was approximately 7-8 years. The cylinders were sprayed with fogging oil before the start to try and prevent any damage.
So here's the issue, the number one cylinder has low compression on a dry test and the psi goes up on a wet test indicating faulty rings and a leak down test indicates a 12 psi loss whereas the other cylinders show about 8.5 psi loss but the turbo shoots oil out of the top that would feed the intercooler. Could this be related to the cylinder or would this be a seperate issue with the seal or bearing in the turbo? It also started smoking heavily like it was burning a ton of oil. I haven't had time to take it all apart to find out and am currently debating on rebuilding this engine which has a few unknowns or going the cheaper route with a jdm swap. I've heard the 2nd gen blocks like to crack if they're pushed past 450HP.
So any advice or suggestions on what I should do with this car would be great, thanks.
After going through the electrical and finding the cause of the no start I did get it running and it sound like a muscle car probably because there's no exhaust only a downpipe. The engine was completely sealed off for storage which was approximately 7-8 years. The cylinders were sprayed with fogging oil before the start to try and prevent any damage.
So here's the issue, the number one cylinder has low compression on a dry test and the psi goes up on a wet test indicating faulty rings and a leak down test indicates a 12 psi loss whereas the other cylinders show about 8.5 psi loss but the turbo shoots oil out of the top that would feed the intercooler. Could this be related to the cylinder or would this be a seperate issue with the seal or bearing in the turbo? It also started smoking heavily like it was burning a ton of oil. I haven't had time to take it all apart to find out and am currently debating on rebuilding this engine which has a few unknowns or going the cheaper route with a jdm swap. I've heard the 2nd gen blocks like to crack if they're pushed past 450HP.
So any advice or suggestions on what I should do with this car would be great, thanks.