Leak down & compression test with head gasket failure?

[firstRWD]

Can you still do a leak down and compression test on an engine with a blown head gasket, or would it of course just loose compression in the cylinder where the head gasket failed? Does running a car with a blown head gasket usually harm the cylinder with the failure? How much of a cause for alarm is a head gasket failure on a car you're looking at buying?

[Hallen]

Very large alarm.
You are looking at pulling the head and replacing the head gasket at a minimum.

It all depends on how the gasket blew. It is very common to lose all the coolant and then people keep running the engine until the head is warped or the block cracks. It could mean that you have an engine in there that is worthless, not even rebuildable. There are other senarios too, some just as bad, others not quite so bad.

It is a bad idea to buy a car like that unless you know exactly what happened and you have the extra cash and skills to either rebuild the engine or get a different engine into it.

So unless the body on that car is pristine, I wouldn't bother with it unless you really know what you are getting into.

[jlevie]

The extend of the damage to the head and/or gasket will determine how much of an affect there will be on the results of a compression and leak down test. In many cases, the leak will be small enough to not affect those tests. But will still cause the engine to overheat, which leads to greater damage of the head. It is a really bad idea to continue to run the engine in the presence of a leaking head gasket.

[firstRWD]

I'm looking at a s-eta which I planned on swapping an i top end and ecu into for a 2.7i. Based on what you two have said, would you say that I could get a compression and leak down test done, and perhaps that would even help determine the extent of the problem? I'm OK with a cracked head, because I already have a fairly low mileage i head that I planned on replacing it with anyway, but a cracked block would be no good. Is there any way to determine the extent of the damage and if the block is OK?

The body is a black coupe in the rust belt with no rust, which is what I'm looking for, and of course the s-eta part helps since I've got the parts to make it into a 2.7i already... What do you think?

[E30QC]

i think a seta is almost a 2/7 i as it is