While browsing my local junkyard I found a K24A2 engine. It had over 220k showing on the oil change sticker but the price was right so I went ahead and picked it up as a spare for Bartack, my K swapped CRX. Since I've had it sitting around for a while, I decided to go ahead and perform a leakdown test to see how healthy it is. From there I'll be refurbishing it as needed.
If you've never performed a leakdown test the process is pretty simple. You start by making sure the #1 Cylinder is at TDC (top dead center) of the compression stroke. From there you attach your leakdown tester, pressurize the cylinder, then see if the cylinder is able to maintain pressure. Generally speaking you don't want more than 10-15% leakage when testing. In the event it's leaking, you can then trouble shoot the engine further by listening to see if you hear air leaking out past the intake or exhaust valves, through the cooling system, or past the rings. The K series firing order is 1,3,4,2 so after testing the #1 cylinder, you then rotate the crank turning the cams 90 degrees, then test the #3 cylinder and so on.
In the case of this K24, it was leaking past both the intake and exhaust valves depending on the cylinder. Considering the higher mileage of the engine, I think it's likely the valves have buildup on them and aren't seating as well as they used to, so I'm going to pull the head, relap the valves, and replace the valve stem seals while I'm in there.
Enough of my rambling though, here's the video.
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