I was accelerating up a long, steep hill with my car, and I started misfiring and loosing power. There was nowhere to pull over, so I downshifted and revved the piss out of it to get to the top. It's now consistently running on 3 cylenders. If you unplug the #3 injector, the engine beat doesn't change. It's getting spark, its getting fuel, but it has no compression. As in 3psi. The other cyls are up round 150psi continuous cranking. I get a wierd thing in the exhaust, if you hold your fingers infront of the tailpipe, usually they are just puffed against. Now, its puffed, then sucked back in the pipe, then puffed out again. If you remove the #3 sparkplug and run it with it out, this sucking in the tailpipe is gone.

 

I think I either burned an exhuast valve good, or it's stuck open.

take the head off and find a broken valve.

I took the valvecover off, first thing I noticed is that one of the exhaust springs is on upside down. (the engine was assembled in kinda a hurry)

 

I took off the exhaust manifold, and feeling with a piece of wire, there's about an eigth of the exhaust valve missing on the valve that had the flipped spring.

 

So, I get to take the head off tomorrow morning.

 

Could the extra inertia of the flipped spring have shattered the valve?

The springs are variable rate, wound tighter at one end, which is next to the head, and looser at the other.

i don't think putting in the spring upside down is gonna shatter your valves, theres probably a correct way that should be followed, but its not gonna compress the stiff end just cause its upside down.

 

Fingers crossed that its not a beaucoup dinero problem.

I got the head off, the valve is burned good, it melted and kinda has slag hanging back into the port side of the valve. Seat is a bit messed up. I'm debating weather to repair this head or swap on a spare.

Here's the valve:

Big ol' nasty chunk missing.

You need one? I have a 90 2.2 sitting on a engine stand.

Here's the valve:

 

Big ol' nasty chunk missing.

That's one of them new-fangled ported exhaust valves isn't it??? Must be good for at least 100hp.

 

Man, that is one nastified valve!

That's one of them new-fangled ported exhaust valves isn't it??? Must be good for at least 100hp.

 

Man, that is one nastified valve!

 

It was good for an extra 3psi.... of total compression that is.

 

I can buy a spare valve for 16 bucks, and have a seat grind done to get the head back, or I can swap on a spare head I have.

Oh, yeah... what does the valve seat look like??? (pics?)