I've got a bobcat s250 that I just put a used v3300 idi engine in. Engine starts slow with tons of smoke, then smoke completely clears after a minute of running. Has plenty of power and never has smoke or problems starting the rest of the day. Compressions is 200 psi cyl1,495 cyl2,500 cyl3, 175 cyl 4... I know that's low. I would first think it's having ring issues but it is not lacking power through all rpms. Antifreeze is clean, oil is clean not milky,and zero metal flake. After compression test what would be the next diagnostic test? I will add it has zero blowback coming from oil fill cap...
Here is a video
Does shooting oil on top of the piston, of piston number 4 make any big changes? Oil will greatly increase compression, but will do nothing if valves are badly out of adjustment. Could try swapping injectors to see if problem travels with injector. What has been done on this unit? Are all 4 glow plugs working properly. Hard to get a cylinder to fire with no glow plug on an indirect injection engine. Simon C
I was told putting oil in cylinder to bring up compression is a bad idea because it could start or worse bend a rod.... haven't gone that route yet. I'm going to double check valves this weekend and new glow plugs on the way. They tested fine but with my luck that's part of the problem.
I coat all cylinder walls heavy on engines I overhaul and they start great. When I say to put oil on top I mean a small plastic pipe that can go through the glow plug or injector hole and if it is curled can deliver the oil to the cylinderwall. It takes about a table spoon to coat a cylinder well. If it fires up well after that, with plug or injector back in you know the piston ring to cylinder wall is suspect of being not so good. You can hear on your video when the cylinder starts to cut in. Any chance an injector was not installed with 2 copper washers on the bottom instead of 1 like you find in lots of the engines. Try something and let us know what happened. Simon C