Need help compression testing my engine

[Samabra]

Hey guys I have an SR20, and right now its outside a car, i.e sitting in my garage, and I want to do a compression test on it. How do I go about doing that? Someone said that I could hook jumper cables to the started to crank it, would that work? Thanks Chris

[yellow_jacket]

That would work, but there is a good chance that the cable will slightly move and short out.

[Samabra]

OK, so I should go ahead and try it, just be very careful, or how else could I do it? Chris

[S13240]

Be sure there's oil in there!

[Samabra]

There's oil in the engine, but now my question is which bolts do I connect the jumpers to? There is one bolt on the top of the starter, one bolt on the bottom, and a plug on the passenger side. It looks sorta like this: + P + + = bolts and P=plug

[nismojason]

Just wandering and trying to learn for myself, but could you not just turn the crank pulley with your hand a few times? Seems like it would work.

[yellow_jacket]

No, you can't turn it by hand. The motor needs to turn over at starting speeds which is about 250-300 rpms.

I am not exactly sure what the starter for the sr looks like, but it should have a place to bolt the main cable in place. That is where you would connect the jumper from the batter to(the positive one). Connect the negative one to the block or anywhere else that it will get a good contact with the metal. Then you will need to hook a switch of somesort to the wire that is normally run by the ignition to turn the starter on. Hope this helps.