the compression tester is basically a guage with a hose comming off of it that you screw into one of your spark plug holes you can buy one at kragens or find sombody to borrow one from or have a mechanic do it for you.

so you take out the spark plug, screw in the tester, make sure the needle reads 0 before you start, disconnect the coil wire so that the car doesn't start, hold the throttle wide open and crank the engine over several rotations and then you have your reading for that cylander, repeat for all 4

the most importaint thing is that they all read evenly if there are large differenced in the cylanders than something is wrong, compression should be over 100 or so on all 4 cylanders (i'm not sure what the compression on a 944 specifically should be, but most cars should be a little above 100) below 90 and something's really wrong


you can also look for exaust gasses bubling out of your coolant, though this is usually with really badly leaking head gaskets

Dude, thanks alot! I'm going to have to do that right away! Thanks again!