Whats wrong with my motor??

[MitchGT]

I would say buy some copper exhaust gaskets, take off the headers and inspect the old ones, and see if that's the problem.Even if it wasn't the problem,
gaskets are cheap. If that is the problem then you have saved yourself the trouble of opening up your engine.

 

[coolblue65]

I would say buy some copper exhaust gaskets, take off the headers and inspect the old ones, and see if that's the problem.Even if it wasn't the problem,
gaskets are cheap. If that is the problem then you have saved yourself the trouble of opening up your engine.

I already am using copper gaskets, but I am planning on checking them monday night...I was too busy today to work on the car at all.

 

[hrspwrjunkie]

Here is something interesting that I was thinking about, when I was cranking the motor doing the compression test, (ignition disabled but I had oil pressure) I was able to hear something was wrong- now obviously cranking is very low rpm so the sound wasn't the same, but it didn't sound normal either.

blk 02- it makes the noise all the time including idle its just more obvious at higher rpms....I would say the noise really kicks in at 3,000rpm, up to that point you can just kind of tell it doesn't sound right/isn't running right, but if you listen really carefully you can hear it.

hrspwrjunkie- the best way i can describe the sound to you is what a loose rocker arm sounds like.

Okay, I think I have a possible solution to diagnose which cylinder it is...if it is a lifter that is collapsed that badly then try removing a spark plug wire at a time and revving the motor...see which one causes the least amount of deterioration in performance. Specifically try this method, with a tach on the engine, bring the motor up to 3000 rpm and with it running steady state, remove a spark plug wire, see what the RPM drop is. As long as the rest of the engine factors are the good (compression, fuel, ignition, etc) the one that causes the smallest decrease in RPM will be the effected cylinder.