Chip,

On an older 11 HP vertical B&S engine, are you sure there is
a compression release? Pulling a head on motor with good
compression sounds like a lot of work even if you have a
good mechanical background... .

Maybe rotating the flywheel with the plug in will give a
decent indication by feel on that compression, and if there
is a release you might just "detect" that too?

Most of my piddling has been on cars, but I would think
compression is as compression does where engines are
concerned - no? At any rate, I hoped my experience with
cars would carry over enough not to mislead the original
poster.

(...Quadrajet) did the tech forget about the famous secondary metering well leak???

He left the discharge check ball in the accelerator
passage. I believe that foam insert in the carb kits cures
a lot of leaking plug problems without the tech ever knowing
what fixed the problem ;-)

Best,

Steve

Chip Stein wrote:

Stephen Kurzban wrote in message ...
Briggs & Stratton gave me such a wide variance on it that I
didn't bother to write it down, telling me it depended upon
the temperature and so many other factors that the number
wasn't all that important.

briggs doesn't publish compression specs because they have a
compression release and the number mean squat.
the valve face and seat wear, causing you to lose clearance. check
the clearance set them at .006 and .010.

as for the guy with the quadrajet, did the tech forget about the
famous secondary metering well leak???
Chip