Hears a pic of my Eng. before first start up, thats why air filter was out of it!...What about bad head gasket, would it do that?
Oil still looks good!....
NO...work through the simpler time-proven checks & balances first.
1) establish your baseline timing
- where are you at idle
- where are you at let's say 2500 RPM
2) do a cylinder compression check
- if you did in fact wipe a lobe, it'll be either INTAKE or EXHAUST, checking the compression will tell you real quick, and if it doesn't pump up that's an INTAKE problem
3) assume it's something else
- check all your spark plugs, does anything look unusual? wet? fouled? etc
- start it up and pull each plug one at a time, does doing so impact the motor in any way?