the piston rings in my s2 are goosed and most of the compression is leaking past the rings and through the head gasket into the cooling system. my engines done roughly 20,000 miles since being rebuilt by power engineering back in 1997. it doesnt knock or rattle or smoke and i would like to know could i get away with replacing just the piston rings and shell bearings? obviously i would be replacing head gasket and a light skim of the head. i really miss driving the car and want it back asap. i did buy a 1.9 cvh bottom end to go in but it was knocking really bad which is why i got it cheap but this will cost me a fair bit as its gona need a rebuild and 1.9 parts are gona be hard to source so thinking just sorting the 1600 out for now and take my time doing the 1.9 and do it properly

thanks for any advice

 

False economy probably...... and you really cant tell until you pulled it all apart, and if you're doing that you may aswell do it properly to avoid paying to get it all done again the second time around.
If i were you i'd buy a cheap cvh for the short term.

 

Are you sure its rings and not just the headgasket, seems strange not to smoke if rings are gone bud

 

had my local tuner do a compression test and leakdown test. said rings are gone. compression is right down because its leaking past rings. they said its a good thing your using a genuine ford gasket otherwise it would have blown

 

what compression readings where you getting mate

 

compression results in psi from 1 to 4: 95 100 125 80
leakdown test results: 78% 70% 45% 80%