My Engine Swap experience thus far

[yamaripper415]

So today i just turned the key on my engine swap (swapped in a 95 7 bolt with a 94 build date which ran pretty darn good and had solid compression and good oil pressure when pulled out of the donor car into my 95 tsi). It starts right up but fuel leaks everywhere...OOPS i knew i forgot to put in those new injector seals. Fixed that, im a dumb ass. So i have the car idling and its ticking quite a bit. I notice my stock oil pressure gauge does not work. I thought i had no oil pressure so im like F***!!!!! but after testing the gauge via grounding the wire out it appears the gauge is at fault. I have an mhi e3 16g fed through the ofh. Also the idiot light is flickering at idle. I wonder if i may of mixed the sending units up and maybe this is the cause? I just ordered a Glowshift oil pressure gauge so this will answer a lot of questions. I also replaced the mains by the book plasti gauged and all well in spec and used STP for assembly( ive been working on engines my whole life so im pretty good with em)... So what do you guys think??? And sorry for the lonnngggg post.

Edit: The ticking lessened after idling a bit and when i blip the gas the idiot light goes completely off

 

[yamaripper415]

The ticking went away after running it a little but the idle i F'ed up now. So i took it for a test drive (had my friend follow me because the cars no registered or anything yet) and other than the stalling and no idle the cars running solid. Had link logging the whole ride just to monitor things better and it all looks good. So i get back to the shop and know i have some tweeking and this is the first time i had the motor at operating temp so i do a comp check. I was less than happy with the results. 110 75 75 110.Could the idle issue be caused by this? Just judging from the drive you would never know. So now i have a HUGE problem. it was late so i quit for the night(had like 30 people at my fire pit out back i had to baby sit) So tonight or tomorrow i will be doing a spoon of oil in the cylinder trick and a leakdown test. I pray its a headgasket or even a bent valve but i doubt I m that lucky. Lesson hear never judge an engine just by sound always do all possible tests before purchase. And im open for any experienced input.

 

[slamminsammy]

With those low compression numbers, that could be part of the problem. If the engine is blowing a white cloud of smoke, then that would be the head gasket. also did you check your spark plugs ?

 

[XiKeiyaZI]

So I take it that this is a brand new rebuilt engine? You need to keep in mind that, if this is a rebuild, that it HAS to go through a breakin period where the rings will seat with the cylinder walls. This can be done a number of arguable ways but the way that works best for me is Break In Secrets--How To Break In New Motorcycle and Car Engines For More Power . I've personally used Motoman's method twice and both engines are still running strong with near-perfect compression.

Also, how did you torque the head down? It could possibly be a bad seating of the head and the head-gasket is allowing pressure to 'blow by'. There are various things that could effect compression, really.

As with your dummy light flickering I would blame that on a weak battery or a bad alternator. When my alternator began to fail it would show the check engine light and a couple of other lights very, very dimly and I could only see them at night. Eventually it got bad enough that I could see them in the daylight and this coupled with a hard-starting issue. Replaced the alternator and viola.

Just feed us some more information and we'll see what we can do.

 

[yamaripper415]

Its a used engine i got to hold me over during my 6 bolt build. There was a large amount of white smoke at start up and for a little while after. On initial start up it idled near flawlessly which is the odd thing. I do have a weak battery so that very well could be the cause of the idiot light. with those rediculous compression numbers im not trying to run this engine more than i need to, ill warm it up to operating temp to do a leak down and see what i can find from that. The plugs were brown which in my experience usually indicates a good fuel mixture( bear in mind all my motor experience before 7 months ago was on 4 and 2 stroke motocross bikes). I Appreciate all your input as i like to think i know a thing or two but always can learn more from others with greater experience than me.

EDIT: Also during my boost leak test the air was leaking out of the exhaust and valve cover. And there was steam coming from the engine bay but couldn't locate any loose coolant. But i appear to have have a transfer case or leak from where the front half shaft goes into the tranny.

 

[XiKeiyaZI]

Leakdown, check the torque of the head-bolts, and make sure your PCV system is functioning properly. Worst case scenarios : You have a bad headgasket, bad valves, or bad rings

 

[yamaripper415]

Well it definitely has oil pressure good oil pressure hooked up the gauge. I've been real busy at work so I've been slacking on the car. Soon as i get a chance have to make a leak down tester out of an old compression tester. Hoping for a head gasket/bent valve other wise my bolt plans may come to life sooner than planned . Also did the spoon of oil in the spark plug hole test and each cylinder rose about 20 psi on compression.