I feel crazy asking this, but I was getting ready to just pull my head off my integra since I have a short block coming soon and decided to drain the coolant and oil. Could I still do a compression and leakdown test without those fluids, my valve cover not bolted down, and my header disconnected? Will those affect my results? Like will the leakdown test results be off b/c I have the valve cover off and have no coolant or pressure in the cooling system? With the header off, I could at least see if the exhaust valves are sealing at least?
And with the compression test, it sounds like dangerous cranking a dry motor with no oil in it?
Short story, my rebuilt b18c1 had always seemed to burn oil, but ran and made power, but started acting up last year and the last autocross I was at, cylinder 4 was fouling the plug with oil and it ran really rough. I originally just wanted to pull my head off get it checked out, then replace the short block and then inspect everything on the block but after seeing my exhaust valve ports, I kind of want to run the leakdown and compression tests to see my numbers after I pulled my header see my cylinder exhaust valve ports.
My cylinder 4 exhaust valve port looks like this:
Cylinders 1-3 exhaust port all look similar with carbon build up, but nothing like cylinder 4