Local shops are asking about a grand to do a head gasket swap, so I'm hoping it's something else. I'll describe what I'm seeing and if you can recommend anything else, I'd appreciate it.

1995 Cavalier
2.3L Quad 4 LO

-Car sometimes struggles to hold idle when stopping in traffic with a hot engine.
-->RPMs dip low and the car shakes but keeps running. Applying throttle to bring the engine up to ~1000RPM makes the shaking stop.

-Losing coolant. Over about 3 days I lost enough to bring up a low coolant light (Down about 1/2" from normal in the overflow)
-->No drips. Left the car over cardboard and at the end of the day it was still bone dry.

-Compression is 160-160-160-160

-All spark plugs look like this


-No visible smoke out of exhaust

Thanks!

Temperatures do not go above 90ºC

Check the bottom of your oil fill cap. If there Is a goo on it that's a sign of bad head gasket. Also check dip stick or change the oil.

Oil fill cap has nothing on it really, aside from a very small amount of oil. How much 'goo' should I expect to see? And would it be gray in color or something?
Oil on dipstick is clean brown.

I'm overdue for an oil change, so I'll take a closer look at it when I do that.
Thanks.

Just checking your thread and it could be your coolant leak is a HOT leak once the car gets to normal temps and it blows or leaks past a hose,or cracked coolant pipe,or even a bad rad cap(or coolant resevior cap seeping).I would check all coolant hoses and worst case check your heater core look for some serious wet carpet.Idk what else to suggest not to famaliar with the 3rd stuff but your plugs do look fine and would show coolant to me if hg were toast or leaking.Just a thought