Hey everyone,

So I just recently bought a 1999 Eclipse RS for about 2k. It's got 90 on the dash, but the guy says the engine has been rebuilt (....I'm not sure if I believe this yet or not). For what its worth, he did give me a whole other block, head, and intake mani with the car. This eclipse has the 420A

Anyways, to the questions:

He said the car was slightly built up. I found this to be a lie when my little sohc neon beat the **** out of it. I decided to check out some things and am not liking what I see. First things first, I did a compression test, and wierd enough, am only getting 90psi across the board. This was after warming up and WOT.

The weird thing about this, is the car seems to run pretty good. A little slow, but no stumble, studder, or other issues. He also stated it has after market cams, but I doubt they'd cause a compression this low (oh and he said HC pistons.... heh, yeah, bull****.) I haven't done a wet test yet, guess I will here soon. Just thought it was REALLY wierd that ALL pistons read 90, any ideas?

Also, it blew the P/S and A/C belt, so I threw another one on there. After 10 miles, it shredded again....WTF? The pullies don't seem messed up, so what could be causing this?

All help is appreciated. If it gets too bad, I'm just going to turn around and sell her. I don't have time to deal with a bunch of BS. Had a bad feeling about buying this car, but the wife fell in love...and well....yeah you know how that goes.

For what its worth, here's a pic of the eclipse:



And another of the "rebuild" he did. Those look like stock pistons IMHO. But everything does look nice, thats why the compression test does not make sense. Also, for the life of me....who the **** paints an engine green.....:

 

Why would you buy a car that looks as molested as that? Kid, you got taken.

 

Heh...It aint ALL that bad.... just looks like a scene from F&F :P

Anyways, its what the WIFE wanted (She's wanted an eclipse forever, she saw this, ignored the warning signs, and fell in love). So now instead of starting a B-fest.....it's just my job to fix it...... gotta love being married.

Anyways: I don't think it'll be all that hard to completely fix up. But the compression does worry me. Could rings wear THAT evenly? I mean it was dead 90 on all cylinders. Normally I've seen the wear go differently.

 

The engine wasn't rebuilt correctly.

 

Man your killing me with one sentence answers. I understand it wasn't rebuilt right (compression obviously says that). But the question then becomes, in what way could an error have caused this? As in: Did they not hone the walls, did they install the rings wrong (upside down? Oh god...i hope not)

I've got a grand or so to be able to drop into her. I'm just wondering if I could tear it down, throw new rings on there and call it a day, or if this problem is an indicator of something else. Maybe I should just prep for a full rebuild.

 

Could be many things.

Either the rings weren't gapped correctly
The ring spacing was used.
Incorrect piston/wall clearence.

You'll have to take a lot of measurments.