I recently tested the compression on my wife’* ‘04 Cavalier that hasn’t run in about a month. When it first quit on us we traced the problem back to the fuel pump. So I replaced the pump, filter, and pressure regulator. The car ran very well for a week and then just didn’t start again and has not run for about a month. I have replaced a bunch of parts and now am looking for deeper compression issues because I’ve eliminated all the other potential problems I can think of. So I performed a compression test and following are my results. I found specs that for this car the cylinders need to be between 135 and 180 psi. What do you guys think I should look into? Piston rings/seals or broken valves/springs or what? Thank you for your time.
- Cyl 4 = 50 psi
- Cyl 3 = 0 psi
- Cyl 2 = 65 psi
- Cyl 1 = 80 psi

Pull the cover and take a look.

Fair enough, I haven’t done this kind of thing on a four cylinder before only 2 different Chevy V8’*. Anything unique to 4 cyls I should be aware of?

No. Just like looking at one bank of a V8.

Yup. What carfixer007 said ^^^^^^^

I bet something is wrong with a valve on #3 .

sounds like it jumped time that Ecotech 2.2 is an Interference engine which means the timing chain breaks or lets it jump time the pistons will hit valves the compression test 99 % confirms that and looks like Cylinder #3 got the bent valve it will need valve work done or just find another head

awesome, thanks a bunch for the advice. I was thinking I had a broken spring or something but what you said makes a lot of sense. Will look into it when I get a second to tear into the head.

Pull timing-Cover and check your timing marks if all are still lining up I am guessing one cam has jumped time or both if jumped at the crankshaft the timing chains normally has has a different color link that lines up with timing marks on each gear and out of the 3 marks one will be either a different color yet again from the other 2 or one will have a double link side by side this one will normally be the one that lines up on intake cam but can not remember which it lines up with on the eco-tech video'* out there will help with this, And there are two chains on this engine the cam timing chain and a water pump and balancer chain if car has over 100k miles I recommend doing both chains at this time plus water pump replacement the water pump is a real PITA to replace on these eco-tech engines cause replacing it requires you putting slack in balancer chain and puts a great risk of the balancers getting out time by replacing water pump now it eliminates that risk by doing at the time of

chain replacement

Sounds good, I appreciate the direction. Ill get back to you all when i have more visual info on the subject. Thank you for your help.