I re-ringed my engine recently along with a slight hone job and some diy head porting. This was my first try at engine rebuilding myself. I used the marking on the pistons to come up with a .040 over ring size. I also made sure to line up the timing marks on the new timing set I installed.

Since rebuilding the engine, I have checked compression using my compression tester on 3 cylinder on different sides and i am not getting even 5 psi of pressure inside the cylinders. (I am turning the motor over by hand.) I have not started the car yet and have only primed the oil pump by turing by hand (autozone did not have the primer I needed).

I used valve grinding compound on the valves to clean up the sealing surface and I made good metal to metal contact between the valves and the heads.

What could the potential problems with my compression be???

Should I try to turn it over with the starter and see if I get a better result.

 

It's probably fine. the compression check should be craning compression. You remove all the plugs and crank the engine using the starter. You can't turn it by hand fast enough to do a cranking compression check.

 

btw, did you make sure you installed the piston rings with the right sides up and did you stagger the ring gaps?

 

I did install the rings the right side up and staggered the ring gaps.

The only issue is that the ring gap stagger on the instructions was not the full 180 degrees it was closer to 45 by the illustration.