Engine compression restore products

I know, do it right, pull it and rebuild it why waste your time bla bla bla,.... But I am curious. There are a lot of products that claim to be able to at least temporarily restore compression and reduce oil consumption. Do any of them work, or are they all just snake oil?

I have an old Chevy 305 with a ton of miles on it. Put Restore in it many, many moons ago and it does burn a bunch less oil now. No replacement for the rebuilt heads and piston rings it so desperately needs, but it buys me some time.

Engine Restore is the only one I would even think about using. I know our old 305 Camaro went from barely having enough power to pass to having enough power for a nice burnout and plenty of passing power after a can of that stuff.

I prefer just running thicker oil, STP if necessary, helps keep the likely loose bearings together. I have heard good things about Restore.

One trick I've used for helping compression is to use ATF in the cylinders. ATF is an extremely good cleaning agent. Seafoam is another. If you have gummed up rings, that's the best thing you can do. Pour come ATF or Seafoam into the spark plug holes and let it work. Leave it for a day or two, hand crank the over a few times over that day or two, reinstall the spark plugs, run it for a few minutes, then change the oil. I've done this with 2 Honda engines, and in both cases, oil consumption went down considerably. Not a fix, but it helped. On one of those engines, I followed up with Engine Restore and ended up with an acceptable consumption of about 1/2 a quart over an oil change. On that engine, the previous oil consumption was around a quart ever tank of gas, or about 300 miles. As an added bonus, fuel economy improved due to the new found power.

I've had Restore work and not work. If the engine is worn, but doesn't have any deep scoring in the cylinders, Restore can help. And it obviously doesn't help with bad valves. If all depends on the engine and why the compression is low. I've never used anything else that works, other than Seafoam, but it cleans more than restores. It can work on dirty valves, etc..

I run Castrol High Mileage (25W60) to squeeze some more life out of the beat-to-hell 4AF in my 'rolla. It gives you a little more oil pressure and reduces oil burning slightly. Mind you the manual says 20W50 is acceptable in this engine for this temperature range so it's not a radical solution.

Bardahl #2 is a more radical solution along the same lines, it's goop to thicken up your oil, smells like E36 M3 and sticks to everything but it does work.

This isn't just for worn engines, but on carbed engines, before every oil change I expose the carb and blast carb cleaner down it while on the throttle. It cleans any gunk out of the carb and helps blast any carbon buildup out of the cylinders. Make sure you wear safety glasses and have a fire extinguisher nearby when you do this.

I'm gonna try Derick's ATF trick on my 'rolla too before the next oil change.

I used restore in the past and it really does work. I tore down a motor that I had put it in only a couple thousand miles before and it was cool to see all the little scratches in the bearings had been filled in with the copper. It helped my then new to my 79 Z28 get another 2 thousand miles out of the badly worn and tired 350 so I could get the parts together for a rebuild while still driving it.

I had to update this thread. the reason I was asking is my race car is getting tired. I have even, but low compression on all four, although the plugs are clean as a whistle, so I guess the oil scraper is still doing its job. But I was down to 133, 135 126 and 126 cold and dry. I am going to redo my car completely this winter, including the engine, but in the meantime performance is slipping a bit. So I dumped in a can of engine restore two nights ago and ran it for a while. Tonite (cold and dry again) the compression is 165, 165 155 and 150. Just from dumping in a can of goop. I am curious to test again after my next race day in a week and a half. I will see how redlining it 280 times over 4 hours treats the stuff!

Very interested in this. The Datsun is burning more oil these days (pretty sure it's the rings) and I've been loath to do a rebuild or replace the engine on a car that I don't drive that much. I think I'll give the ATF and Engine Restore a shot.

Color me skeptical. What keeps the little "filler" particles from washing away during the very next combustion cycle?

If you're gonna do this, hook up a vacuum gauge before the band aid, and take idle measurements immediately before, immediately after, and after some period. If the stuff is actually improving ring seal, vacuum readings will increase.

I rig up a vacuum gauge after engine freshening to determine when the new piston rings have seated.

Steve Chryssos wrote: Color me skeptical. What keeps the little "filler" particles from washing away during the very next combustion cycle? If you're gonna do this, hook up a vacuum gauge before the band aid, and take idle measurements immediately before, immediately after, and after some period. If the stuff is actually improving ring seal, vacuum readings will increase. I rig up a vacuum gauge after engine freshening to determine when the new piston rings have seated.

Hey, I am a skeptic as well. But it was less than $10.00. I can tell you that after reading some of the 9 pages of the thread below, I thought I would risk my hard earned cash. I can provide empirical data because my car is extremely consistant around our local track. I can to do a lap in 16.9 seconds, and if the goop does not work, then my lap times will not change, plus post race compression will be back down to the old numbers.

http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/engine-restore-does-work-71649.html

I am waiting for someone to start going on about boats and shut the thread down anyway.

Just out of curiosity, does anybody have any experience how this sort of goop affects one's ability to rebuild the engine a little later on?

I'm still debating if I should rebuild the engine in my Miata rather than drop in an NB2 engine but I want to give it a little time to allow me to find a decent NB2 engine so I need to nurse the engine along.

Steve Chryssos wrote: Color me skeptical. What keeps the little "filler" particles from washing away during the very next combustion cycle? If you're gonna do this, hook up a vacuum gauge before the band aid, and take idle measurements immediately before, immediately after, and after some period. If the stuff is actually improving ring seal, vacuum readings will increase. I rig up a vacuum gauge after engine freshening to determine when the new piston rings have seated.

I agree, but compression results don't lie. I've seen this stuff raise compression significantly on at least a half dozen vehicles I've used it on.

What sort of compression numbers would you expect to see before you even considered this?

Just an update about my rebuild in a can. 10 laps into the main I airmailed a rod. It was spectacular. And my time in was the slowest in over 2 years.

Not sure how much I can blame on engine restore, but it clearly did not help. It was a well used engine, but I rolled new bearings in about 16 race days ago.