If I remember correctly your compression readings would support that the compression rings are still in pretty good shape. Sounds from your description that the oil control rings have been sufficiently worn such that they do not reach the cylinder walls to sweep/control/contain the oil.

This would all be consistent with the car hemorrhaging oil (as it was).

New oil control rings are a must...up to you if you want to do the compression rings while in there...

 

Hi folks,
It's been a couple of weeks and here's the update...

I did some reading on the other forum about drilling some oil control holes under the oil rings and modified the pistons with 6 holes, 3 on each side. There did not seem to be a lot of down side to this modification, and it may help if the viscosity of the oil gets out of whack.

I had a sticky ring compressor so manage to break a piston, so got a used one in very good shape from a wrecker to replace it. On the advice from an ex mechanic I changed the crank and con rod bearings while I was down there. They were a bit worn, but nothing was out of spec. The cylinder walls were less than 1/10000 out on the thrust surfaces. It took about 200 strokes with a medium stone using a deglazer on a battery powered drill to hone that out. Cylinders were fairly true maybe 1/10000 taper, and maximum 2/10000 out of round, so they looked good. So no oversized rings, just a new set of stock rings.

I ran it for the first 20 miles or so with the existing filter and oil I had salvaged (and filtered through a rag), as there was less than 50 miles on both. I then dumped that and refilled with synthetic. I took it through emissions testing this morning and it litterally sailed through with better than average readings in all categories.

I have a better appreciation of why there is a problem with some of these engines. Following some of the threads on the other site they oultined some of the history on hwo these engines were designed. Based on the aggessive performance design criterea they were designed to they required extremely good oils to make these engines work properly. I don't think I was religous in adhereing to the user handbooks reccomendation of changing the oil every 3000 miles, partly because of the vast improvements in oils over the last number of years. I just viewed this as the Saturn Service departments being a bit greedy. It's unfortunate that the manual did not state 'These cars must run on synthetic oils'. This would have been in line with the engineering/design work that went into the creation of these engines and there would be a lot less problems for everyone. Anyway thanks for the help.

 

Footnote. New compression 210, 205, 205, 210. :-)

 

glad you are back sailing