I screwed up the head rebuild somehow

So I have the entire Turbo car back together now, and hoping to take it for a safety inspection soon, but the stupid thing won't start. Tried a bunch of different things, but it just cranks and cranks with no sputter or anything. Just the engine shaking and that's it.

Looking everything over, I had three scenarios in mind. 1. Timing belt is off 2. Distributor is off 3. Valve lash is incredibly off and holding the valves a little bit open at all times.

To rules out option 1, I hooked up a compression tester to cylinder 1 and cranked over the engine. 40psi. Yikes! So I checked the rest. 20-20-30. Ok, so the timing belt is obviously the problem right.

I pull the timing belt, set everything exactly where it's supposed to be, got the tension right and tightened everything back up again. Redid the compression check, 40-20-20-30. Jesus. So I pull the valve cover and watch what the valves are doing. Yep, they're going in time. So last resort, I pull out the Milton Cylinder Leakdown Tester I bought 'just incase' a couple months back. If you don't know, it's basically a flow meter hooked up to a spark plug hole adapter that blows compressed air into your cylinders and you listen for where air is rushing out. That tells you your compression problem area.

I hooked it up to cylinder 1 and made sure it was at TDC with both valves closed. Tons of air comes rushing out of the throttle body. (Intake valve is leaking). So I try cylinder 2. Same amount of air coming out of the throttle body, but now there's air coming out of the exhaust manifold too. (both valves leaking). The gauge on the unit reads "high leakage" both times. :wall:

Yep, so I screwed something up royally when I rebuilt the head. Looks like it will have to come off and come up with another solution.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the CA20E valve springs you installed? I know it doesn't make sense but it something to try.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the CA20E valve springs you installed? I know it doesn't make sense but it something to try.

If thats the only thing not standard it sounds like a good place to start. Them losses seem a bit much for just a case of baddly seated valves.

Well, I did do a full port job on the head when the valves were out. I'm starting to think I knicked the valve seats with the die grinder when I was doing around the valve stem.

man, i feel your pain. it's always a nervewracking moment when you start her up after having her apart for a while.

from the amount of air that seems to be coming out of the intake and exhaust, it sounds like more than a nick would do. did you lap the seats before putting the valves back in? if that is the problem then it gives you an excuse to get that performance 5 angle valve seat grind. i assume that you had no trouble setting teh valve lash? i guess you'll have to take her apart to be completely sure.

one question. why'd you bother with the ca20 valve springs? are you planning on running over 6.5K rpm?

The '88 CA20 springs? It was all apart. It was a good chance to try something new.

As far as I know our cars do not have "clearance" engines, so I wouldn't be cranking over the engine too much until you have the heads off, and can maybe see the problem. To have that much leakage you would almost wonder if the cam is 180 degrees out or something...:dontknow:

Drain the oil and pull off the valve cover and try turnin it once or twice and see what happens... wotha try.

Drain the oil and pull off the valve cover and try turnin it once or twice and see what happens... wotha try.
Just turns and turns and turns. No sound, no point where it stops turning. It'll just keep spinning and making puffing noises as long as you keep turning the crankshaft bolt.

take the rockers off and then do a leak down again that way it will eliminate the cam

This is strange ... it's acting like the distributor is 180º out. At the same time, it's acting like the valve timing is way off too.

When you set it to TDC, it was on the compression stroke right?

I really doubt it has anything to do with your port job. I've seen cars run with gaping holes in the head ... not well, but at least ran.

ok it's two scenarios
one take the vlave cover off
rotate the crank pulley until the first lobe is pointing down.
this mean i THINK the engine is on tdc
check it and make sure you haven't placed the timing wrong.
second make sure the dis cap has #1 exhoust side up top a bit to the left if you looking at it form driver's panel.

There's a couple of XE's in the wrecking yard here. I'm just going to grab the head off one of those and swap it into my car. Plus, this way, I get a CA20E intake manifold as well. I know the CA20 cam sucks and it won't have the port job anymore or anything, but at least it will run and I can get the car safetied. Once it's all nice and street legal, then I can rip into it and do all that fun stuff again.