How do my cylinders look? With Videos

[Gkwan]

I got a chance to borrow an inspection scope and take a look at a few of my cylinders and I was hoping to get some options as to how they looked. I can't tell if they look good or bad, but it seems there is definitely some carbon build up.

Mostly I'm wondering if its burning any oil or if my rings are going

If you have a chance, take a look and let me know!





Thanks!

[5Toes]

they look average, I would not worry about it too much. my m42 had similar carbon buildup and I cleaned it up and put a rebuilt head on, now its at 180psi compression. if you want you could use a spray bottle and mist water into a vacuum line and clean it up a little that way while holding a high idle

[varg]

What prompted you to inspect the pistons and bores? Are you experiencing any problems? They look pretty normal, the clean spot on piston #2 is kind of odd looking, but not likely to be any indication of a problem because it's so small. Sometimes clean spots on the edges of dirty pistons are indicative of coolant intrusion. Your pistons have less carbon than mine did when I had my cylinder head off after I bought the car, but my engine has 2XX,XXXmi on it (odo was broken for a long time) and may have been babied for a lot of its life, which would really dirty things up.

If everything is in good order, take your car out and rev the piss out of it. Drive it hard, rev it out at WOT, that will clean it up a little bit :up: You can still do that with a stock or mostly stock 318 and not raise any eyebrows, I'd get myself arrested.

[Gkwan]

What prompted you to inspect the pistons and bores? Are you experiencing any problems? They look pretty normal, the clean spot on piston #2 is kind of odd looking, but not likely to be any indication of a problem because it's so small. Sometimes clean spots on the edges of dirty pistons are indicative of coolant intrusion. Your pistons have less carbon than mine did when I had my cylinder head off after I bought the car, but my engine has 2XX,XXXmi on it (odo was broken for a long time) and may have been babied for a lot of its life, which would really dirty things up.

If everything is in good order, take your car out and rev the piss out of it. Drive it hard, rev it out at WOT, that will clean it up a little bit :up: You can still do that with a stock or mostly stock 318 and not raise any eyebrows, I'd get myself arrested.

Thanks, I will think of you next time I rev it up and wake up the neighbours!

The car is now to me and I only took a look into the cylinders because I noticed that I was getting oil in to my spark plug tubes and took my spark plugs out to clean them up and take change the plugs. Also I happened to have the scope around and figured why not! I've seen a bunch others on youtube doing videos with the scope and wanted to see what was going on down there. Its good to know that they don't look too bad.

No issues so far, but there is an oil leak and will be changing the timing chain gaskets soon.

thanks!