I completed additional tests tonight which cause me confusion or clarity depending on how you look at it. First the results:

I did a test to test the fuel pressure to see if there was a loss when I shut the engine off. The fuel pressure after shut off did not go down. In fact it went up. I smelled for a gassy smell in the oil but couldn't smell any. My nose is not that good though so that's not very accurate.

Additional Leak Down test results. I decided to try to determine if the air leak was with the rings or the valves so the theory was to test for leak down on the problem cylinder (#2) and then squirt some oil in the cylinder
and turn it over a few times, then test again (I never got to this stage in the test, no squirting of oil). If the numbers went up then it would point to the rings and if there was no change then more than likely the valves. What I got was totally different results from before. Here they are:

#1 = 9%
#2 = 7%
#3 = 11%

Numbers are rounded. Got too late to run the compressor in my complex so I could only get through the first three.

Variables. I did only two things different from the last tests and that is first, I had added the BG 44K and have driven it about 10 to 15 miles and second, I warmed the engine before testing.

Another test was to listen for air coming from the valve train or other places. I got a stethoscope and listened around various areas and couldn't detect a sound of leaking air. The sound of the air going into the cylinder was so noisy I wasn't able to detect any other sounds. For a control test I was able to hear perfectly the air leak coming from my compressor hose so I know the stethoscope works well.

At this point I'm thinking my problem lies in the head. That oil is dripping down the valve guide when it sits or runs and goes into the chamber when the valve opens.


An additional update. I took it today to JeepsRUs (a local jeep shop) and paid them a fee to put it on the DRB II. He found no errors with regards to engine firing or injectors. All values were normal. In addition, he took out the 6 degree advance he previously put in when I was trying to get rid of what I thought was ping so now the MPI Kit is back to 14 degrees advance per stock MPI Kit specs. Now the engine runs even better but still have the oil problem.


After I left JeepsRUs I drove it to the swap meet driving highway and city miles. I had put a set of fresh plugs in the night before so they were pretty clean as of this morning. When I arrived at the swap meet I took a look at #2. It looked ok, not fouled and just a touch of black around the element so I put it back in and walked around the swap meet for an hour or so. When I got back to the parked jeep I again took a look at #2. This time I saw fresh oil around the threads of the plug the heaviest being at the top most thread and on the washer that comes on spark plugs. Now, how did this oil get there? I checked to make sure it wasn't coming down from the valve cover into the spark plug hole and no, there was no oil on the
outside of the head in this area. It couldn't have come up from the block, could it? The only thing I can think of is it's coming down from the valve guide and as it drips down and flows past the plug opening the warm/hot oil gets drawn up into the plug thread. Does this make sense?

I wiped the plug clean and drove it back home and did the same test. Looked at when I got there and let it sit for an hour and looked at it again. This time I didn't see the oil but it could be per chance that I landed on TDC for that cylinder and the valves were closed.


Comments?