OK, I am a do-it-your-self-er and a passing fair backyard mechanic, but I have limited experience so I only know the things I have encountered and this one is new for me! Of course this happened on my way from the court house after buying tabs having just filled the tank, and spent a lot of money fixing the timing gear on the crank!

So anyway it is a 1990 Mirage 1.5l four banger and it was running like a champ when all of a sudden the engine dies while trying to park! No warning at all just dies. So I get it started again but only by revving it hard and get it parked. I manage to get it running enough to limp home by putting the idle very high but it has instantly lost most of it's power, and wants to die every time I hit a stop sign.

So last night I borrowed a compression tester because I thought I could hear hissing while it runs but I could find no obvious vacuum leak. It has not gotten any oil in the water or water in the oil and it has shown no sign whatsoever of overheating, but the compression test shows an almost complete loss of compression on both of it's inner cylinders (2 and 3) and it is fine on 1 and 4. So as I said this is a new one for me!

One thing I will note. The bolt had backed out of the harmonic balancer and thus I had to replace the crank's timing sprocket recently, so while I was torquing the center bolt (it is an auto tranny but the engine was blocked with a screwdriver in the flywheeel teeth) the screwdriver slipped and let go while I had a hell of a lot of push on the breaker bar and spun the engine hard until it stopped (I know a valve was struck by a piston) but as I said after re-assembly for a while at least the engine ran perfectly. Still my fear is that perhaps some damage occurred and it held just so long and finally gave way, but it still seems unlikely to me that two cylinders would be effected?

Any idea or suggestion or theory will be appreciated. I don't even know if I feel it is worth fixing but knowing what I am up against is the first logical step!

 

On a 90 marage the pistons wont hit the valves. make sure your rocker arm shaft retaining bolts havent backed out. recheck you t'belt timing. your head gasket may have blown between those two cyls. Three things to check.