warped head or craked block problem

[driftintoacurb9]

Alright, about 6 months ago i was driving my car and noticed my oil pressure dropping, so i looked in my rear view mirror and noticed a nice trail of oil behind my car so i pulled over and started looking at my car and saw oil comming from the filter so i tried to tighten it but it wouldn't spin thats because the seal on the oil cooler had gone which I found out later. But when fixing this i did not get the right seal because i am stupid and did not want to pay dealer prices so i went to advanced auto and got a seal off of an oil filter that i thought would work. Now 2 weeks ago after a good day at the races i was driving home with some fellow dsmers and my car started to knock prominently at 3000rpms. The next day home from work my car stared to shutter and was losing power and was knocking really bad by the sound of it. Then it wouldn't stay running it kept stalling out so I just quit trying to make it run and called a friend to help tow my car home. we did a compression test and got 186,135,176,185 so i put oil in #2 and got 184 next i drained the oil and it had coolent in it and when i drained the coolent it had oil in it. So i'm thinking bad head right but when it came back from the machine shop they only had to shave .006 of an inch which is ok because i think the service limit is .008, but i'm not positive. Also the head gasket looked ok too so i don't think it was bad. So would all that plus maybe a bad oil cooler do the damage or should i just give in and get a new short block. Because if i put in the effort to take the rest of the engine out to get the block magnafluxed to see if it is bad, i might as well get a new short block because the engine has 133,000 miles on it with no previous rebuild. So should i say f@$* it and get a short block and star over or should i put the car back together and try to run it. thanks

 

[blue1]

pull out the no2 piston and see why the compression drop! Then while the oil pan is off check your bearings and find where the knock is coming from then make up your mind from there. if its an easy repair or not!

 

[timloomis]

sounds like a headgasket or the head.im guessing gasket b/c thats where all the ports for oil and coolant are.you have to take the head off,so youll know soon enough.

 

[wolf20043]

Before pulling the head off and pistons out, make sure you did not over tighten the oil filter and crush the paper thin walls in the oil cooler. That could let coolant in the oil and oil in the coolant as well.
Mike

 

[Rush]

alot of people insist on tightening the filter down till it wont go anymore.hand tight is plenty.turn it by hand till snug...do a 1/4 of a turn to tighten.of coarse im sure you and most people know that.also.did you have this problem before or after the head was machined? if after make sure its not the gasket.again you can over tighten the head bolts also...use torque specs(basic stuff)

 

[Old Mitsu Tech]

Well, if you plan on keeping the car and are looking for a "cheap" way out I would just find a good low mile used engine and start anew. I would then tear down this engine and if you are in the mood for mods, this could be the engine as it needs completely overhauled anyway. Sometimes our worst enemy is ourselves. We've all been there. Now you can tell others not to do that and speak with great authority. That's where experience comes from. Good Luck