"Michael" wrote:
What you say is true, but only because what you
refer to as a completely flat cylinder is not in any
way equivalent to a cylinder not making power.
A completely flat cylinder is what a mechanic will
call a cylinder that is not anywhere close to making
compression in a static test - meaning it only
makes, say, 20/80 or even less.

I have in fact had this happen - ...There was no
noticeable impact on performance,

Yep, I've even had this happen on *two* cylinders on the same side of a
LYC O-360 and noticed nothing until a just-for-the-hell-of-it
compression test revealed the bad news. The engine was running nice and
smooth.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM