OK, I put an "A" cam in my '84 245 about a month/1200 miles ago. As part of the swap, I reset all the valve clearances as per the specs in the Bentley book. I was working on a stone cold engine and I set all clearances to 0.014"-0.015" using dealer tools and shims. I set all the clearances and double checked all of them after spinning the engine over a few turns. For the past month, the car has been running great with a lot more power than an average 240.

I took a short (200 mile) trip about a week ago in 100 degree heat to the mountains. I was facing a headwind and a slight grade the entire way up and I could only manage about 65 MPH. The temp gauge fluttered between the 8 o'clock and 10 o'clock positions on the way up and it would do 70 on the way back, but the car never overheated. When I got back into town, I noticed the car was running rough and down a bit on power. I found and replaced a faulty knock sensor, but the car is still down on power a little bit. I pulled the plugs and found the following:

#1: Caked with grayish fluffy deposits and a slight green hue on the electrode tip. Deposits do not bridge the plug.
#2: Clear and abnornmally clean electrode, very slight green hue at tip
#3: Similar to #2, but the porcelain is darker in color.
#4: Looks completely normal with light gray/brown carbon deposits.

Discouraged, I did a compression test on a cold engine and got more bad news:

#1: 90/175 PSI
#2: 95/180 PSI
#3: 95/190 PSI
#4: 95/195 PSI

These numbers are down quite a bit from a year ago (see this post: http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/volvo/1385841/220/240/260/280/lh_20_running_little_rich_thoughts.html), by as much as 20 PSI on the first cylinder. The cooling system does still pressurize with the engine hot...

Now the question: Given the compression numbers and the proximity to the cam change, is it possible that I have burned the valves on the first three cylinders with the valve clearances I have set? Or given the green hue at the plugs and the deposits on the #1 plug, is the head gasket slipping already? Any insight would be appreciated...

Thanks,
Nick