Engine running super rich!

[Grant]

Okay. My car is really starting to piss me off. After a complete rebuild, the engine would crank and crank but wouldn't start. I checked the spark plugs, the wires. There is spark, but no ignition. The fuel pump is working, and the injectors are too. We tried pulling the car up and down our cul-de-sac, to and by letting out the clutch, the car would run. The only problem was is that is still refused to idle, and was still incredibly rich.

One day, with little hope that anything would change, I switched in a different ecu that we had sitting around at home from one of our other three dsm's. Magically after a bit of cranking, the engine started on it's own. Ive since discovered that my turbo oil seals are blown, but thats something I know how to fix.

My real question is regarding my cams. I have the extremepsi version of hks 272's. It is timed correctly (after a long struggle), as far as I could tell. The fuel pressure regulator seems to be working, but there was only roughly 10 inches of vacuum at best and the car refuses to idle. Ive checked all the lines, and there are no vacuum leaks. The next thing I thought of was bad rings, as my short-block wasn't assembled by me and I don't personally know that it is in good shape. So I performed a compression test, and got roughly 50-60 psi on the number 4 cylinder. I suspected that maybe the rings were bad, and added some oil through the spark plug hole. This didn't change the compression reading. I then went through the rest of the cylinders, and they were all about 55-65 psi. This eliminates a bad head gasket, as the numbers would vary.

The car will max out at 3000 rpm and just bogs down. My spark plugs are just covered in soot. Also, the fake "boost gauge" in the instrument panel claims that I am producing anywhere from 5-10 psi at 2500 rpm. This actually isn't possible! I simply have the intake snorkel and maf hooked directly to the intake manifold, to eliminate any possible boost leaks and to bypass my oil throwing turbo.

Another crazy thing is that for some reason, there is an incredible amount of pressure up and around the valve cover. The pcv will just blow an almost steady stream of oily air out, and oil leaks out around my oil cap. After the engine warms up, turning the oil cap results in a little rush of air as the pressure equalizes.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[aaparker]

Your compression numbers are extremely low. I just recently tested mine and am hitting 145 across all four. It sounds like the cam isn't allowing the valves to close completely and you are loosing pressure there. Which if that is the case doing the compression test with oil wouldn't change the results any. As far as the pressure through the valve cover, the pressure in the turbo system will feed back though the turbo into the oil pan if the pressure in the pan is lower than that of the turbo system, so possibly a bad oil pump. Just some ideas hope this gives you something else to look for.

 

[viprez586]

Bad rings= Blow-by
Blow-by= High crank case pressure.

The factory boost gauge is calculated by the ECU and is not by any means a point of reference.

With cams your idle vacuum reading will be lower then normal aswell.

please clarify "There is spark but no ignition".
I'm assuming your trying to say your timing is off, make sure the CAS is installed properly, And all timing marks are aligned with #1 @TDC.

 

[Grant]

Thanks for the feedback guys. What I meant about the spark is that it is there, and in the correct order. I think that either one or both of my cams are 180 degrees out of phase, as it's timed properly, but to the wrong marks! The stock cam sprockets I have had each 2 marks, and not really thinking about it, I just picked one on each to use.

So I might also have a bad oil pump? The gauge in the dash did show some pressure, but it was never very high. I attributed this to the fact that the turbo was simply losing so much oil that it would always be low, but now i'm not so sure.