Update time again:
I've been working on this car off and on, but driving it very little. The thing just doesn't want to run. Starting has been crap, and running is poor, especially below 2000 rpms. So I've been trying to figure that out. I decided to swap in different injectors, and to my surprise found this:

Those are injectors (l-r) 4 through 1. #2 is the correct injector. The other three? They're about a full inch longer than the right ones. I have no idea how they weren't hitting the valves. VW injectors maybe? At any rate, I put in some nice looking ones from Craig, and well, the car ran exactly the same. Sigh.

I got some other stuff from FCP in, including new motor mounts. When changed, the passenger side mount was in rough shape...

...and not doing much. I changed both motor mounts and the tranny mount, and the car is way smoother now.

Also changed was the fuel filter, again, to see if that made any difference. It appeared to help a little, but still the car starts like piss. I was planning on using Dale's K-jet tester, but don't have the correct fittings to check control pressure where the manual states. Also concerning is the amount of white foamy crap at the oil cap. I checked the hoses and fittings for any blockage, but couldn't find any. I'm hoping this engine isn't on its way down. Hopefully a compression test will tell me more.

I think you should weld up some fat solid mounts

Sometimes I wonder how the stock mounts last even as long as they do.

Do a leakdown test, or at the VERY least a compression test, and verify that all 8 valves are lifting the proper amount.

If those tests come back negative, you need to test the injection system. In the past 7 pages I don't know if you've done this yet, but here's my method: Pull all 4 injectors and hang them in glass jars. Get a fifth glass jar to pour the fuel from each of the injectors in, and a lawnmower to dump the test fuel into. Pull the intake hose (between manifold and airflow plate) and jumper the fuel pumps so that they're both running. The injectors should not be leaking, even a drop. Get a pair of vice-grips on the nut at the center of the airflow plate, and slowly lift it. The injectors should start singing and spraying a nice, even, conical pattern without any peeing. If you're not hosing down your engine bay with fuel, vary the amount of lift at the airflow plate and make sure no injector does anything funny. Drop the airflow plate and the injectors should stop immediately, with maybe 1 drop falling from an injector being acceptable. They must not leak more than this.

Pour the first jar into the fifth jar, and draw a line to mark the level. Pour out the fifth jar and pour the second jar into it. The fuel should come up to the line exactly. Carry on for the third and fourth. If they don't line up exactly, don't panic - the lines might not have all been full at the beginning of the test.

Now put the jars back under the injectors and prop the airflow plate up with the blade of a knife or something else thin. You want to test the low-flow balance, so block the airflow plate a millimeter or so above where the injectors start spraying. Again do the jar shuffle, marking a new line for the baseline. Do the test again at full flow - you can just hold the plate wide open for this one, as it won't take very long.

If the injector balance is good and they're not leaking when they're shut off, your running problem might be in the ignition. It might also be in the fuel mixture too: it's something that rarely needs adjusting, but once you've verified that all 4 injectors are spraying right, and that the engine is mechanically sound, you may get it running much better with this little bolt. It's the one right between the airflow plate and fuel distributor.

Your warmup regulator (or control pressure regulator) might also be the culprit for needing the mixture adjusted - it might not be regulating to the right pressure: Too high and your engine runs lean, too low and it runs rich. You've got to be sure that you're getting current to the heater coil at all times, and that the heater coil is working, raising the control pressure in a matter of minutes on a nice day. You need test gauges for this: I've got a set I made that I can bring down one day if you like.

The starting problem is maybe one of the check valves having failed. These check valves keep full pressure between the fuel pump and the fuel distributor outlet. The high fuel pressure helps keep the fuel from boiling out of the fuel lines when you shut the hot engine off. You can test it by starting the engine cold, getting it running right, and shutting it off before it gets hot. Go back to it the next day and if it starts nearly immediately, you've probably got a bad check valve.

This was a problem I chased on my 242 for a while. You can buy the check valve at the fuel pump, but not the one at the fuel distributor. I ended up making my own out of viton or butyl or something: I got a sample from a local gasket supplier and just started carving my own using a dremel as a lathe. After 2 or 3 tries I got it right.

It could also be a bad cold start injector system: make sure the thermal time switch is working, make sure the TTS is only passing current through to the CSI while the starter is cranking, and make sure the CSI is actually spraying when this all should be happening.

So yes, there's lots that can go wrong with this system, but you've got to be thorough and systematic in your approach. There are some tools you need, and if you don't have them you can't proceed until you can borrow them.

Those other three injectors look like B21/23 k-jet injectors. I've never seen a short one like you have there. There is (might still be there) a K-jet 142 at PNP. If we knew what the issue was we could grab some spare parts. It's been there for about 3 weeks now so the chances of it still being there are slim...

Cool Matt. Thanks for the breakdown of those steps. I've been reading the manual a fair bit, but most of the tests there involve the pressure tester. The jar thing should be really helpful. I discovered with the early cars, all you have to do to get the pumps running is to disconnect the connection at the fuel distributor, so that should make it easy.

The check valve thing is a possibility, but the car always starts badly...hot or cold, so I'm not sure what that means. The car always starts immediately when cold, but promptly stalls, and requires 2 or 3 starts to stay going. Idle then is about 2 or 300 rpms. I can't get it higher. Once hot, starting is slow and takes a lot of cranking until it eventually catches. I often hear a popping sound, almost like a quick backfire when it first starts.

The thermal time switch hasn't been checked yet. I've checked the auxillary air valve and its good. The CPR has been changed a few times, trying different ones to see if there's any difference. Currently the CPR is the correct numbered one off my old b21f, so it should be good. I've changed the CSI already, and it made no difference. The thermal time switch was the last thing I hadn't checked there.

The thing I'm worried about is that this system is so full of crud from that old fuel tank that somewhere there is a blockage. I'm hoping the fuel filter did enough to stop crap getting through.

Dale, thanks for thinking of me with that 142. The longer injectors in the car were another 1/4 inch longer than the b21/23 injectors. The short one has been verified with the correct part number, so I'm pretty sure they're correct. I've currently got two full sets of those, a spare fuel distributor, two spare CPR's, and a spare cold start injector. I'll have to check on the thermal time switch yet. There's still a '75 245 out in Raymond which I've already grabbed some things off of, so I may go out there and just pull the rest of the K-jet stuff just in case,

Have you checked for vacuum leaks? The o-rings at the base of the D-jet injector holders gave Dale & I some grief on his car before I found what was the problem. Megasquirt really doesn't care about vacuum leaks much - the idle just goes crazy high. K-jet could idle high, could idle low, depends on the mixture. You need to be sure that the injectors, injector holders, and all the piping/hoses are tight and leak free. Check the bellows pipe between the airflow plate and intake manifold - those things develop cracks right at the crease, and you might not see it until you flex it the right way.

Weekend update!
Following the Dupuis method, I had a busy weekend. First up, I checked and cleaned the intake hose, cleaned the airflow plate, and checked to make sure it was properly arranged. Air filter was finally changed. The old one was OILY. Pretty sick.

I then got out some bottles, and ran the described checks on all the injectors. #1 and #2 both had slightly off spray patterns, so they were both swapped. #2 still was slightly uneven, but appeared within spec. None of the injectors leaked at all. When the main pump first came on and the system was pressurized, they squirted briefly but shut right off. At full injector flow, all but one of the injectors squirted the same amount over a 20 second test. #2 was slightly less, but it was likely no more than 10% less, which is within the manual parameters. Over a 1.5 minute low flow test, all injectors were the same. All is well.

I then checked the cold start. It doesn't leak, and the spray pattern is perfect. When cranked in a +15 degree garage, the injector only came on for about 2 or 3 seconds, which doesn't seem like enough to me. I may swap the TTS at some point, but I'll try and test that separately.

Craig was very generous amidst his hectic work schedule to help me with my valvetrain on Sunday. I had a new valve cover gasket, so we pulled everything apart. LOTS of rust on all the components. Everything was washed and scrubbed, the valve cover was painted, and then Craig ground the lifter thingys, put it all back together, and reset all the valve clearances. Most of the pieces were in good shape according to the doctor.

Next was the compression test. Numbers are as follows:
#1 -120, with 4 squirts of oil into the spark plug hole, 142
#2 -130, 150
#3 -115, 130
#4 -125, 148
This engine is low compression, but I'm guessing these numbers aren't great.

The doctor informs me this discrepancy is due to worn rings. This would also explain the frothy blow by. The block oil separator was pulse blowing a fair bit when disconnected.

At any rate, the cars runs, well, pretty much the same after all this. There is more power down low, but less up high. It still starts like crap, and won't idle above 200 rpms for the first 20 seconds, and then the idle gradually increases. Once warm the idle settles at about 1100 rpms. Its set that high so the car will actually run when cold.

Matt, yep, I've been replacing any worn vacuum hoses, and looking for leaks everywhere. The intake hose looked good. All injector holders are tight, and the injector seals are all brand new. I must admit the seals don't seem all that tight, but they are the stock part. I have no idea where to check next. It feels like its the CPR, but again, I've changed that a few times to no avail, so I'm just not sure what it could be. Meh.

The intake boot on the fuel distributor can be troublesome. If it's not perfectly sealed etc, it will cause all sorts of grief. I trust you've checked and double-checked to make sure that is seated correctly?

After changing the air filter, I did double check it to make sure it was on right. I'll check again.

Well good job so far, but the injectors squirting when the pump turns on scares me a little. They really shouldn't, but I suppose they could while the pressure was building up in the fuel distributor and moving towards the control pressure regulator. Still, shouldn't happen. They wouldn't spray at all after that, with the pumps going full blast and the airflow plate sitting on the stop, right Greg?

Your compression numbers look low. I'm not sure I'd agree with Dr. Pushrod on his analysis, though - #3 only went up 15 psi with 4 squirts of oil, indicating you're leaking at the valve. In fact, you could check the volume of 4 squirts of oil and calculate the compression ratio increase, and guesstimate the compression pressure increase that would come along with it. I'll bet the 15-20 psi you saw isn't much more than that, suggesting to me that the rings aren't leaking TOO badly. Regardless, even for an 8.5:1 motor those numbers are pretty low. Definitely contributing to the poor starting.

If you can dig up a core head (I think I know where there are one or two, though I'm not sure how many are for a fuel injected engine - one for sure) and do a budget rebuild, I'm betting you'll see some improvements all around. I also might know where there are a couple B18s and a B20 laying about, if you wanted to do a swapperooni.

Regarding the rest, though - I'm thinking that it's time for a thorough diagnostic on the fuel pressures before going any further. It also sounds like the coolant-temperature-based idle air valve is stuck, or you've got the throttle plate out of adjustment, or a combination of the both. I know in Dale's B20 the car would idle pretty slowly (7-800) for the first 15-20 seconds and then pick up to 14-1500 until the engine warmed up, but yours sounds like the valve isn't moving at all.

I need to figure out when I can come down, but I'll give you a hand one day. You're not desperate for the car yet, are you?

Dr. Pushrod chiming in here. The compression test (and engine condition - blow by etc) do confirm my analysis that the pistons or bores are warn. Sure, I don't have a leak-down to do , but there is noting wrong with my method here. First up, the balance between the cylinders are all within 10 % on a sample of one per cylinder (we could have done it more times) - the sum of the compressions dry is 490/4=122.5 on average. 10% of that as a deviation is 12.25, for a max low of 110.25 psi. So it's in the range. Wet is the same with respect to cylinder to cylinder deviation. #3 is the lowest, but still within the 10% overall window. We could have run it more times - but there was little point. The individual differences were 18%, 15%, 13%, 18% between wet and dry.

As for the valves, if you pump some oil in the cylinders, there could be some change as you've just added a small volume into the combustion chamber, but you didn't add 20 psi worth - I'm not doing that math on that one (I've got a cold). There is a good chance that the oil didn't fully seal the piston as we didn't carefully cycle it over by hand then let it sit before running the test.

If the valves were faulty, it is unlikely that they would all go evenly and you'd see little change with the increased oil (assuming you only have one type of problem i.e. you don't have piston or bore wear).

The oil does temporarily seal the piston to the bore to produce more pressure. A leak-down would verify this analysis, but I'm going to stick to my guns on this one. When my B18 went down, it was two cylinders sharing compression with similar low numbers to the ones I got on Greg's car, with 2 and 3 (the shared set) being a further 20 or so lower. There was a small change (5 psi) when wet - which I initially diagnosed as valves as there was an imbalance and the pressures on those two cylinders did not go up much (there was ring wear to boot). So in this case you could be fooled and a leak-down would have verified that there was no problem with the valves. But for something as straight forward as this, there is no need to call in NASA.

So, I don't see the problem - and honestly, I don't see what basis there is for doubt here. My abilities on the mechanical side of things are not completely coming out of my ass as I've done this many times. I'm not an idiot after all. This was done somewhat in haste as I've got rather a lot to do in a short time - this was not planned. Holding your hand over the flame trap and feeling the pulse of combustion gasses coming out may change your mind as per the head being at fault - I'm not sure how faulty valves could put that kind of pressure into a crankcase. As faulty valves bleed off pressure into either the intake track or exhaust.

As far as heads go, B18 heads do not interchange with B20's unless you want your performance to suck even more. I'd suggest that if Greg wants to rebuilt the bottom end, that would be time better spent. This is not a 0 mile engine and the condition of the valve train needed a picture to be believed. We're not talking about a little crud build up here - this was full bore rust encrusted - hard to see parts, bottom of the sea epic sorts of rust. The car did sit out in the rain etc for a dozen or so years. So swapping the head is not a likely solution to this particular engine - why do half the job when there is ample evidence that it just needs to be rebuilt?

My next best guess is that the piston rings probably didn't fair a lot better than the valve train with respect to the environment - and with valves left open etc, there is a damn good chance that either the rings are stuck in place - i.e. not expanding or were damaged at start-up (rusted to the bores and damaged when cranked).

Edit - Before coming to work, I checked and my squirt gun delivers a little over 7cc of oil in 4 shots, after it's been primed. A 2 litre 4 cylinder with 8.5:1 compression ratio has 66.7cc volume at TDC. Squirting 4 pumps of oil in that engine would bring the compression ratio up by almost 11%, and you'd expect to see at least that much increase in compression pressure before you bring in the extra heat from the higher compression ratio. That's the basis of my doubt.

You're right that the oil might not have sealed up the cylinders completely, but on a vertical bore engine I'll bet that by the time you got the tester hooked back up, the oil had worked it's way around the rings. What I DON'T know is how deep the dish is in these pistons, so how much of that 7cc of oil might have been swallowed up by that rather than sealing the rings.

You can't argue with blowby or pulsing PCV gas, but since I'm not there to see them for myself I won't deny or confirm their existence, as even the healthiest engine has SOME blowby and pulsing PCV gas. You've been around long enough to know what's excessive, so I'll give them more credence than I would most anyone else.

Fair enough, the pistons, like all in the land of pushrods, are flat tops - no dish. The engine is OK for now, Greg will have to watch as things get clogged with the foamy froth of snot that it is belching out and get ready for a quick rebuild before next winter so the winter beater can run well next winter.

Okay, so the next question I've got is what's the head gasket like? Foamy oil typically equals moisture, poor starting can come from plugs getting wet (though I would think you'd see coolant on the plugs by now), and combustion leaking past the head gasket can sometimes look like valves unless a leakdown is done, at which point it could look like rings, plus it'll pressurize the crankcase through the pushrod drainback area. No excess pressure in the cooling system, I guess? Check the torque on the head bolts maybe, just for curiosity.

If you're going to do a rebuild, Greg, I think I've got some flattop B21 pistons kicking around, and I think Dale's got a big bore B20 headgasket in stock. No replacement for displacement, right? You've already got the "good" crank and can take advantage of the slightly lighter B21 "M" rods (which I should also have in plenty). Keep this stuff in mind, anyway - no need to move on it immediately. Dale might be willing to offer his injected B20 from the 122 as a rebuild core, and has an 8 bolt crank to go with it (as well as a '75 head, I believe). We can piece things together pretty easily, so you're closer to a "simple" swap-and-go solution this fall, provided you can wiggle the purse strings loose.