I don't have a real leakdown tester, but I do have a compressor. I've been fighting an oil leak that is coming from in between the heads and the block. I'm about to pull the heads but before I do I'm pumping compressed air into the cylinders using a valve hold down fitting. I can hear air leaking into the crankase at just about any pressure. Using the guage on my compressor it slowly leaks out even at as low as this thing will read. Understand that it's not coming out very fast, I would estimate at less than 5psi so far on the cylinders I've checked. I'm really just testing to be sure that my valves are sealing, cause I'm not burning any oil and the plugs look fine, if anything they look slightly lean, so no oil in the cylinder.

At any rate is some leakage past the rings normal? Or should I just pull the whole thing and rebuild it. Not really an option that I care to take on at the moment. Car has about 90k on it and is running great, just the oil leak thing has been driving me nuts.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

 

Some leakage past the rings is normal. It is the rate of leakage that is important. That is why you need the proper leakdown tester.

 

That's what I've been thinking after doing some research on a leak down. I know it isn't precise, but given the symptoms I don't think piston rings are an issue. Still doesn't explain the oil leak though. I'm hoping that a visual inspection of the head gasket will tell me what I need to know. If I don't find irrefutable evidence of what's causing the leak I'm going to put the original heads that I was running back on the car.