EJ22 30 PSI on all four cylinders HELP

[Bobthecat01]

Here's the story: 

Driving my '93 legacy wagon home from work about two months ago. Bone stock EJ22 running perfectly fine.

Take a hard left turn from a stop and shift into 2nd in the middle of said turn.

Car starts bogging and not responding to throttle input as if MAF is failing and I'm able to limp it home while engine runs progressively worse. No loud noise, no puff of smoke, no strange engine noises, no milkshake, engine and coolant level are fine

Go out to start in the morning, crank no start and sounds like bad compression.

 

First thing I do is check timing, all marks are perfect, belt isn't damaged, keyway didn't shear off, everything is business as usual. 

Do a compression test:

Cyl 1 - 30PSI

Cyl 3 - 30PSI

Cyl 2 - 30 PSI

Cyl 4 - 30 PSI

Pull the engine, took both heads off. Headgaskets are perfect on both banks. Valves are clean and in great shape, no damage whatsoever.

Cylinder walls look great, pistons move freely and smoothly in the block.

From everything I (and every other tech worth their salt at my shop) see, this engine should run and run well. I can not for the life of me wrap my mind around an engine failure like this, ESPECIALLY an EJ22. These things are known for being bullet proof and this one has been. For a long time.

 

Any advice or some fresh perspective on something I may be missing would be very appreciated. 

 

[forester2002s]

Low compression reading? And same reading on all four cylinders?

I would suspect a problem with the compression gage itself.

[Bobthecat01]

That's what I thought but it wont even try and run. I tested it with a Snap-on compression tester and some other brand one of the guys in the shop had and they were the same with both tools. 

 

[nvu]

Collapsed hydraulic lifters maybe?  

[rverdoold]

Would more suspicious the timing is well off. A hard shift can cause to have a load on the crank and when the timing belt tensioner is broken/loose or just bad you can skip couple of notches. Normally manual gearboxes have a protective guide over the crank-axle sprocket to prevent tooth jumping. Just in case this piece is or went missing it could have happened. 

Check the metal plate in this (see this unsharp image just above the sprocket) from this thread.

[lmdew]

Too bad you are so far into the engine already.

Yes, I'd say timing as well.  I know you said everything was good.  Did you add some oil into the plug hole/cylinder and check the compression again on each cylinder?

Were you holding the throttle wide open when checking and had a good battery?  Did it jump right to 30 on the first stroke and then not go any higher?

[Bobthecat01]

I didn't put oil in the plug holes and recheck compression.

My battery is good as far as I know. It was cranking quickly and I had 12.6 Volts before cranking, should be plenty.

The gauge would jump up the 30 and stay there. 

The timing marks were dead nuts on both cams and crank too. The only way I could see the timing being a problem is if the crank pulley slipped exactly 180 degrees and miraculously landed back on the timing mark?

I don't have the protective plate over the crank sprocket, this thing has jumped time on me twice before during similar hard-turns open throttle situations and I've always been able to reset the belt and fix it. The last time it happened I replaced the tensioner and pulley. 

[rverdoold]

I guess it is a Non-interference engine. I would remove the timing belt and put the valves manually closed on both sides and try to measure again the compression. You can only get that low number if there is a hole. But you mentioned HG is good, so it must be either rings or valves then. And since it is all 4, rings would be unlikely and valves only when the timing is dead off. And test maybe the gauge on an other engine and see if it goes up, maybe it is blocked or something. Just a thought.

[el_freddo]

On 1/2/2025 at 12:33 PM, Bobthecat01 said:

The only way I could see the timing being a problem is if the crank pulley slipped exactly 180 degrees and miraculously landed back on the timing mark

And the odd thing here is that this would re-align the timing correctly if it’s back on the crank mark. 

Checking compression with all valves closed will give very inaccurate readings and potentially different readings across all cylinders as no air is entering or leaving the cylinders. 

Unless there is something being done wrong with both compression testers and they’re both good (strange things like two dead compression testers can happen), this is a bit of a weird one. 

There would need to be a pretty significant blockage of the intake, or more likely the exhaust (collapsed cat could do it) to hamper the results of the compression test if the block and valves are all doing what they should be doing. 

Cheers 

Bennie