2.3 Barely made it home tonight

[JTB530]

I checked spark, fuel pressure and compression. I had 170-180psi on three of the four cylinders. Cylinder #3 was 130 and the sparkplug on that cylinder stood out as the odd duck as well. I pulled the head and the 3rd bolt on the right/exhaust side of the engine had rusted in half unclamping the seal on the head gasket. I'm sending the head off in the morning for a rework. I'm amazed at the lack of cylinder wear with the mileage this engine has on it, no ring groove whatsover. I would like to pep the engine up a little bit if possible. Is there a cam that would work with the stock ecm or should I just leave everything alone and just reseal it all?

 

[RonD]

I believe you can have the head shaved a bit to raise compression.

Changing hardware like the cam is a bit problematic on computer controlled engines, unless you have control of the computer

Look at the bottom of this page for other performance improvements:
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/4cylinders.html