does restore oil additive work?

I did a search for this on the forums and couldnt find anything so here goes.

Does Restore crankcase additive really work to raise compression in an engine?

I did a compression test today and came up with cyl 1 at 205, cyl 2 at 190, cyl 3 at 205 and cyl 4 at 130.

max comp is supposed to be 218 and min 145. since I have only 150k miles on the engine and it still runs good, should I use this Restore stuff and does it work? I hate to get a rebuild at this point. Im using mobil 1 synthetic and have for the past 90000 miles. when I added a bit of oil to cyl 4 compression came up immediately. so Im thinking its the rings. would it be worth the money to get a leakdown test done at a shop?

I dont want to do anything to further harm the engine either so of course Im coming here where I see the best advice. Im a big lurker as I usually dont have much to add to posts so dont let the super low post count bother you.

Oh yeah, I dont know if it matters but the vehicle is a 2001 toyota corolla.

I appreciate any advice.

Thanks gunner.

For $8 and already owning a compression tester, I think you should experiment and get back to us

Since you only have one cylinder down,..

could easily be a blown head gasket...

edit: Rings, especially in a well taken care of 1.8 toyota should wear evenly. I'd get a leak down test done and sniff the rad for exhaust gases...

I used Restore once, many years ago, on an old Mopar 318 that burned some oil. It seemed to help a little, but I didn't bother doing compression tests so I have no firm evidence to share.

I will, however, mention an alternative that I have used more recently. It also has quite a following among the oil fanatics over at BITOG and numerous third party reports of improved and more even compression (among other things). Go here: http://www.auto-rx.com/ for the product and here: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=5&page=1 for the BITOG additive forum.

In my recent case, I saw fuel consumption drop noticeably (averaging 22 in mixed driving before to 24.5 after full clean and rinse phases) on my 110k mile BMW 525i. No other changes to account for this drop.

YMMV.

are you burning oil? A low compression # alone does not point to rings...

I have seen alot of those 1.8s come in my shop burning oil. We did a headjob on one and just ran some sandpaper on the bores and the customer said it stopped some of her oil consumption. So I would have assumed that it helped her compression.

Some years ago one of the GRMS folk did an actual test with that rebuild kit which consists of pellets you dump in the cylinder. It worked, temporarily, and not perfectly.

Yes it does burn oil. it was burning a quart every 3750 miles (my change interval with synthetic) but this last time it burned two quarts during that distance.

also it seems to burn 5w30 (used in the winter) faster than 10w30 (used the rest of the year. if it had not started using more oil I would have just left it alone, even though its obviously down on power. (not that 125 bhp (factory spec) is much to write home about anyway ) it needs every little horsey it can get.

I was going to just take it for a leak down test before doing anything else. anyone have any idea how much that will cost? I havent called around yet.

A quart every 2k is nothing, zip, zero, zilch!

In my unscientific testing Restore did increase compression in all cylinders and the engine didn't blow up after using it so go for it if you want to try it.

I used it in my Honda a while back. Dropped oil consumption and made the engine feel a bit stronger. No real evidence to back it up, though.

Used it in my z31 back in the day, seemed to help oil consumption (which wasn't too bad anyway).

SupraWes wrote: A quart every 2k is nothing, zip, zero, zilch!

Aha! great to hear someone say that!

I'll try this restore stuff to see how it works then. Thanks guys!

gunner wrote: I was going to just take it for a leak down test before doing anything else. anyone have any idea how much that will cost? I havent called around yet.

Build your own tester, it'll cost about $40-$50.

http://www.motorcycleproject.com/motorcycle/text/leakdown.html

When I built mine, I made the damper valve with a brass 1/8" close nipple filled with solder. I then drilled a hole through the solder for the proper oriface size. I also put a gauge ahead of the damper as a reference to what the air supply is.

i use it in my nissan truck (vg30e), and it helps with valve tic. also seems to stop my LEAKING oil...go figure?

-J0N

I just dumped the 20 oz Restore in one of my cars - I had a cylinder at 85 psi and the rest at 180. I'm doing another compression check at 1,000 miles. I run 10W-40 Valvoline max life oil and was going through a quart every 1,500 miles.

Mines an oil burner too. Reason I think it may be the rings is I put a few squirts of oil down the spark plug hole and immediately got great compression.

I'd like to do the leakdown tester myself but for a lack of knowledge of the results and no air compressor, Im not going down that road. good idea though. I havent put the restore in yet, I.m waiting for the oil to drop low enuf (burn thru enough) so I can add it without draining any from the crankcase.

I actually tour down a motor that I had put restore in several times towards the end fo its life and you could see where it filled in the scratches in the bearings. There may ave been a little increasing compression. My SOP dyno said that it helped a little as well.

I had some luck using Restore in a friend's near-death Reliant a few years back. Made an otherwise beaten and neglected engine pretty happy.

OK - just wanted to post back. My compression went up 40 lbs. so this has been a worthwhile experiment.