1995 850 T5 Compressions test questions

[T64me]

I watched a youtube video (Ericthecarguy) and he did not mention warming up the engine first so I did not do this.

With the engine cold and no oil squirted into the cylinders (Eric suggests a dry and a wet test) my T5 had the following numbers for the dry test/no oil squirted into the cylinders with the engine cold:
160 152 156 155 150

Are these numbers ok? This car has over 300,000 miles on it. Overall it is sound. I am trying to decide if I should spend money on it to do a complete timing belt kit and tune up - I figured a compression test was a good place to start.

Thanks in advance for your constructive input.

[erikv11]

The spec for that engine is 156 to 185 psi. Your numbers look fine for a 300k engine. It's great that they are so close together. They are on the low end of the spectrum but If you do it warm (which is definitely standard practice) then the numbers will likely creep up a little bit. It is also imperative to floor the pedal and have the throttle wide open, otherwise fuel gets in and will reduce the numbers.

So the rings may be a little worn but not too bad, that wold not scare me away from a DIY timing belt job. Is there any smoke out the exhaust at startup? Or after idling at a stop, does it give a blue puff and more to the point how large of a puff? Valve stem seals are likely bad by now, just wondering how bad if they are.

[T64me]

This car does not seem to blow smoke at all. Not at start up. Not at after idling.

Thanks for the input Erik.