Pull the Block?

[scheides]

Ok guys, the 6-bolt on my bro's 90 talon had 0 compression on cyl #2 (full results: 100-0-100-110). The block has 190k miles on it so we figure its time to do new rings and bearings, maybe new pistons a bore, not sure.

So tonight we yank the head off (thanks for the help Allan!) and sure enough the head gasket is blown out on cyl#2 and the head has a good gouge out of it. The spark plug from that cyl had a chunk missing from it, so it could have been caused by that, or possibly an overboost (ebay mbc FTL!) So we're pretty sure the head is crap, not a big deal as we have a rebuilt head ready to rock.

The cyl walls look pretty good all the way around, plenty of cross-hatching and the tops of the pistons look to be in decent shape. Cyl #1 either has a weak injector or something as it looks like it has been running a little hot. Other than that everything looks good.

So my question is, is there a way to check and see how good of shape the rings are in w/o pulling them out? The cyl wall clearance on all cyl's looks identical to the naked eye, all pistons in decent shape. We're considering putting on a new head gasket, a set of arps, and a rebuilt head and seeing how she runs. Is this a bad idea? Any other ideas?