| Ive had a JDM engine in my Z for half a year. Ive put 8K miles on it, done everythign in my power to make suer the engine was extremmely well cared for and its ran nothing but perfect. Until yesterday. I was on the way home from AZ and had completed 1500 of my 1800 mile round trip drive. Im coasting along doing maybe 90 and start to accelerate up to about 100 to pass someone and suddenly hear loud tapping. I pulled over only to hear what was definitely more than lifter tick. As I was about 10 miles from the next exit and had no phone, I decided to try and drive the car slowly to the next exit. It lacked all power and had LOTS of valvetrain clatter at anything above 1800RPM. I parked the car and was able to get to a phone and have the car towed back to Ft Collins. I did a compression test: Dri:132, 122, 129, pass:155, 100, 125. I forgot to hold the throttle down so those values might be a bit low.
The spark plugs had some bit of whitish color around the threads and the tips were a darkish color but not black. There was no build up on them.
The car isnt leaking oil or coolant but I noticed a small amount of oil in the intake manifold. Normally the car idles at about 12 inHg vacuum, and is now idling at about 10.
It has loud clattering at idle and when the engine runs at idle a small amount of smoke(maybe exhaust?) seem to emanate from under the engine on the passenger side.
I was also running crappy 90 octane gas found in Albuquerque, but it seems that if detonation was the problem then my compression would have been worse. Bent valves? Rod bearings? Is this engine done? Why in the f*ckin hell does this shit happen to me? I have absolutely pampered this engine due to a heavy state of paranoia from my last engine. I dont know whether to ask for help or just bury myself... =( Later
Josh
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