I have a friend that has one and he took it out to the lake a couple weeks ago and he said that it was acting real sluggish. It hasn't been ran since August, but did have Stabil in the tank. He took it to a local reapir shop and they compression tested. the results were 140, 140, 140, 135, 140, 114. They told him that it would have to be rebuilt. He had a friend that works on motors, that recommended putting it on the muffs in the yard and idling about 5 gallons of gas/seafoam through it. Then running 5 more gallons of gas/ringfree through it. He has since done this and actually took it to the lake and it ran great. He has not had another compression test done though.

Opinions on if the motor is still fatal or if it has maybe recovered? I told himm that I didn't know, but I knew of a great place to ask.

Most likely it is fine. After setting for 5 months, I'm really supprized that it wanted to run at all. Basically what you did is a fuel system cleaning. That it needed. I really don't think any harm has resulted, but I would need to look around for a better diagonistic mechanic. I've seen this way to many times that engines are rebuilt due to poor diagonistics.

Thanks Mike. That is what he was hoping for, but didn't know. Like I mentioned, he ran it on Saturday, and said it ran as good as it ever had.

I talked to him again and gathered some more information. He bought a compression gauge and had 120 on 4 cylinders 115 on 1 cyinder and 90 on the one bad one. This is different than what the repair shop told him, but still about the same as far as the variance. He checked it again yesterday after running it Saturday and still had 120 on 4 cylinders, 118 on the the one that was 115, and 105 on the one that had 90. I guess he is gaining some compression back.

the rings are freeing up, I would nt worry abt it, if its running good, just run it.

For the most accurate results , compression test should be done on a warm block with the throttle @ WOT. I have brought those kinda of compression numbers up to within 5-8 lbs of one another with power tune. But that was only powerheads where carbon was the problem.

The differnece in the two readings can be just the calibration between the two gauges. It appears you do have a problem with one cylinder. There should not be more than 15% difference between the highest cyl. and the lowest cyl.Pull the head off and inspect the cyl. wall or look in it with a bore scope.

+1 or at least keep a close check on tha low cly. If it starts droppin' ya need to take a look for sure. You might take a readin' with it "cold" and butterflies closed. This will give ya a base line that will enable you to check it at anytime also.........jmo

I've been at this game long enough to have had a few motors fail/need rebuild. He needs to go get it build soon and he definately doesn't need to be running it anymore. If he has galling; which I suspect, in that one bad cylinder he can pull the top ring or a piece of it loose and do even more damage to the engine. He can also cause the person rebuilding it to have to either resleeve (if it excepts sleeves) the engine or overbore it to the point that that cylinder is no longer rebuidable or in a worse case senario, have to fork out the bucks for a new block. Been there, done that, and got the T-shirt....

I appreciate the info.

I am going to print this out and give it to him to think about.

He did mention that to me about the 15% difference. He was about 25% difference when he started and now he is around 12% difference after the treatments.