TTurboPimp

iTrader: (12)

When he says a friend, its actually a shop, not a guy in his driveway. Ben at Freed Engineering is the best that I have ever dealt with, and I have been in this game longer than most. If he says the compression is off, then its off.

Not saying Puff mislead anyone, he wouldnt have known himself without checking the compression. Chaulk this up to a lesson learned when buying a boosted car. I did a compression check on my built 1UZ prior to selling just so I and the buyer had a piece of mind.

On the plus side, at least what your doing is gaining you something positive......ie a stronger motor.

veritek

Agreed with what Jeff said. It's too late now, but for others out there, it would be best to get a compression test done if you're buying a boosted car. Well, at least now you will have a strong motor, and actually a similar set up to mine, GTE bottom end with the GE head, aka the Frankenstein set up, lol.

99 GS3

iTrader: (14)

Sorry to hear, although it does not seam your blaming puff in anyway. Which if you didn't compression/leakdown test it yourself before buying it then there really couldn't be any blame to place unless he specifically told you that that it's been checked and was all good..

But otherwise to the issue at hand, did you do a wet test? Because the low compression could be the valves or head gasket as well. If you pour a little oil in the bad cylinder and redo the compression test and the numbers go up then it's more likely the rings are worn. If the numbers don't go up then it could be the valves.

When your doing the block swap you should be sending your head to get decked and pressure tested to make sure it is flat and the valves are sealing.

So you've got a GTE bottom, that's cool. Is it a VVTI GTE bottom? If not then it won't have the large threaded oil feed for the VVTI solenoid right beside the powersteering pump. Other than having to work around that issue using a NON-VVTI GTE block is fine.

Good luck, keep us posted on how it works out for you. Ben has done tons of 2J swaps/builds so you should be in good hands.

99 GS3

iTrader: (14)

Agreed, when buying a boosted car I would personally want to do three tests on it. Compression obviously, a leakdown to see how well the valves are sealing, and a radiator pressure test.

With both a leakdown and radiator pressure test together you should feel pretty good about any headgasket or cooling system pressure issues. Sometimes a compression test can read ok when there may be other issues still.

twoloose

iTrader: (2)

Yeah I'm definitly learning an exspensive lesson here, its my fault for not having it done. Puff said the head was sent out and redone before the turbo went on, with a new 3mm head gasket, that was only about 10k ago. As far as driving it hard, it ran good when Puff took me for a ride the day I bought it, I got it back to MD and it was running ok for about 2-3 days, never get on it fully, never even went over 80-90mph. Then it started in with the boost/fuel? cut when you get on, especially in 4th-5th, sometimes in 3rd...It not all the time though, is about about 90% of the time right now, it has ran perfect a few times under boost, 1 day it seemed to run fine all day and that night the power cut was back..No check engine lights or anything...So due to that issue is why the AEM tru boost has been put in, so we can monitor the boost to see if its over boosting or what. There was no boost gauge in the car prior to me buying it. The catch can went on becuse its good to have and jeff gave me a great deal on one(thanks again)...

As far as what I knew was wrong with it before I bought it, turbo oil leak and a A/C line leak...Like I said if it anyones fault, its mine for not doing a comp check on my first big turbo car...Just sucks pretty bad that I haven't really gotten to enjoy the car running great yet, and now i have to change the block...Should be stronger when its done though I guess..

L3XOTIC

sorry to hear. hope it all goes well.

99 GS3

iTrader: (14)

While you have it apart I can't stress enough to take the head to a reputable shop and have it pressure tested. Just because he had the head worked on recently doesn't mean it's automatically good to go. I've had 2 friends recently get headwork done at local shops that had good reputations with working on big power cars, but neither were very familiar with the particular head being done (one was a 2J the other a M52 bimmer head), and both friends ended up installing the heads and having problems. And it turned out that after all that work the valves were not sealing properly in both cases, and these were done by two different shops.

Do it once, do it right. If not it's gonna cost a you a headgasket and a bunch of headache each time you have to do it over.

tn96dc

iTrader: (7)

Don't worry man, you'll have it back together running perfect and stronger than this setup could ever be

twoloose

iTrader: (2)

Thanks guys for the encouragement. Picked the car up from the shop today, all the little BS and leaks are fixed. Still haven't figured out the power cut issue though, I have another thead in the performance section. If you have any idea's hit me up in there...

SoCal Cyco

iTrader: (20)

does anyone have a phone # for the Freed Engineering shop? thanks and best of luck with the car man

edit: found it

Kzem

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully your newer head will last you for as long as you need the car.