Update, in case anyone finds this post, as well as a further question. YES, 4 months have passed and I and still F%#$# around with this car.
I found the issue, this is after towing the car to the "Engineer" that sold me a rebuilt head and rebuild the bottom end for me. Then waiting 3 months for him to "Take a look" where he said. "Yeah, you need to take the head off" before towing it back to my house.
Head came off and went back to the "engineer" where he said I had bent 2 inlet valves. I showed him pictures of the completely unmarked piston. and he gave me the head back with "new inlet valves".
Put it back on and guess, what? compression had bumped up to 70psi, still not great, but a change.
I started playing around with different lifters under the inlet and exhaust rockers and started seeing small differences when playing on the exhaust side. Removed the exhaust rocker and 175 like the rest.
It turns out one of the exhaust valves is about 1mm taller than the rest. I used a metal ruler to prove it. This is after I have returned the head once already complaining about that specific cylinder!
The "Engineer" says he is ordering me a 40 thou shorter lifter which will fix it.
My questions now are:
1) Does this "Engineer" know anything about cylinder heads even though this is his entire business?
2) Should I be worried that the valve seat is messed up and pulling into the head, causing this, The car needs to run for at least 3 years. Especially after a full engine rebuild!
3) Is it standard practice to grind the valves to the correct heights on these heads, and they forgot to do this one?
4) Nowhere in any of the manuals I can find any mention of different length lifters, so once again WTF?
All the towing, new head gaskets etc have all been at my expense so far as well. Starting to get slightly pissed off here and wondering if I should get a head from somewhere else.
...J.D.
