Compression Test

["Octavian I Popa" <oipopa@crnotes.cca.rockwell.com>]

Greetings all from balmy Seattle!

Can someone send me the procedure for testing the compression in my '87
Milano Silver?  I have a good quality tester but I'm wandering about such
things as:
a) Do I ground the ignition coil to the engine block, or do I leave it
open?
b) Do I have to pull the fuse to the fuel pump?
c) Do I need to do the test with the engine cold, and warm?
d) What is the nominal pressure for a good engine?

I want to find out if I have bad rings or if the valve guides are bad, so I
was planning to do an initial compression test with the engine cold, then
squirt some oil in the cylinder and repeat.  If pressure goes up, bad
rings.  Stays the same, bad guides.

I'm doing this test because the engine doesn't idle smoothly, although runs
fine at higher revs, has decent acceleration, etc.  I pulled the plugs
(Silver Lodge) and found that over the past 7K miles since new, they
accumulated quite a bit of black crud, and there was some oil on the plug
threads.  Now, does this sound normal to anyone?  My oil consumption is
about 1 quart per 1000 miles, normal driving.  Consumes much less on long
trips when the engine stays warm.  There are no drips at all under the car,
no matter how long I leave it.  The car has 72K miles, and has been run on
Mobil 15-50 synthetic for the past 7K miles since I've owned it.

Thanks for any advice, and I'll report my findings for anyone else having
similar symptoms.

Octavian - Issaquah, WA  '84 Spider      '87 Milano 2.5