LRC

SO, heres a little back history on the car. I own an 02 RSX-S has a K24-A1 bottom end swap and is supposed to have a K20-A2 head(Im not sure how to check and prove that if someone could tell me how to find that out itd be great, like i said im a noob). 6 speed tranny RC750 injectors golden eagle fuel rail, Hondata-KPRO, im assuming stock internals. Wilwood Drag-lite 3 piece drilled/vented/slotted Rotors, and Willwood 4 piston calipers. and a Greddy T-25 turbo system. (yes ive been told Many times by many people its a worthless turbo system on my motor but none of them seem to want to offer up the cash for a better system...). Tuned by English Racing @ 5psi just to be safe-ish

Ok, on to the problem and My biggest concern with the car. it randomly starts smoking! really bad smoking, it smells like burning oil terrible-ness, really kind of scary for a poor college kid like me.
ive only noticed it at idle.(i will watch and see what the AFR does next time it happens) the smoke is a light grey-ish color similar to cigarette smoke, not black not white. and like i said, its random when it does it.
it started doing it ALOT right after i had the oil/power steering/tranny fluid changed at an oil can Henry`s (my arms are too big to get all the way in and grab the oil filter unless i pull my down pipe completely off).
i know vtec style motors burn some oil. and this isn`t the normal vtec burn-smoke.
Also, it doesn`t come up really low at oil change times(3,000 miles) it comes up maybe a quarter to half a quart low at most. and i run full synthetic, ill have to look at what weight they put in it because they forgot to give me a sticker.
now i would assume its a piston ring or a valve seal. but would it really only smoke like it does at random and not constant??

This is really scaring the hell out of me being this car is my DD and i feel like its going to blow up and im going to have to dump a whole lot of money i don`t have into it.

Ive done some searching and have seen that i should do a compression and leak down test,(i will report back with any findings i have). there isn`t any leaks coming out of the block or anything like that.
So any other information you guys could offer would be greatly appreciated! please no "hella jdm yo" or go search noob answers please.
Thank you.

LRC

Well. with 181 views and not one single reply ive lost any kind of faith i had in this forum. i`ll just delete it when i get out of class since nobody has anything to say....

Sugar Shane

Forgive me, but I think I'm correct in saying that this is a car forum, where people go to discuss cars. It isn't staffed by diagnostic wizards in pointy hats who are sitting around waiting for people with strange problems to post questions. 181 people have read your post, have nothing useful to say, and thus have not replied.

But, since you want an answer, I'll give you one: don't expect to have an easy time diagnosing problems with a car that you bought from someone who modified it to that extent. You don't even know what you're dealing with, so why would anyone else be expected to? On top of that, you purchased this Frankenstein with the intent of using it as a DD? Reliability goes right out the window with any serious modifications, especially if they weren't done by professionals, which it sounds like they weren't.

If you want a wild-*** guess, though, I'll give you one. It sounds like one of your injectors is randomly dumping fuel when you're at idle. We used to see it a lot on the early-production BMW turbo engines, back when I worked there. I'd start there, if I were you. No, check that; if I were you, I'd start by removing whatever modifications are on the car, and return it as close to stock as you possibly can, if what you really need is a reliable DD.

SickSi99

Get under the hood and try and pinpoint where the smoke is coming from. Sounds like it may be oil spilling out somewhere on the engine.

LRC

Thank you!
that`s all i was asking for was a fresh pile of neurons to point me in a different direction that they might have tried themselves. not a bunch of people i don`t know who don`t give a damn about my problem try and fix my car over the internet. wasn`t the intent at all. just looking for possibilities from people who know this type of engine much better than i.

The original purpose of the car wasn`t to use it as 100% DD. i had another rig for my DD. but it became my DD when i transferred colleges. so thats why im putting a somewhat built car back and fourth to school.

oh and turns out(with the information from a honda race shop who almost only deals with K series stuff. i/we are about 80% sure that the head isn`t a K20A2 and isn`t a frank motor at all). so really there isn`t a huge amount of mods to it. but i know what your saying.
my buddy mentioned that my bearing or seal on my turbo itself could be blown and is the cause, his idea is check the turbo, then the head, then the pistons. we are pretty sure its not a piston ring because if a ring failed it would be noticeable and all the time. not just random and only noticed by looking in the mirror and by the smoke pass the window. he also mentioned the brakes if they were vacuum and blah blah they could be back flowing into the motor and that im torching brake fluid. (its happened on a local jeep)

to the other guy whose name i dont remember. how would oil spilling on the exhaust leak out the exhaust pipe itself ?? its not smoking from the bay. just out the tail pipe.

But anyways, thanks for the ideas. it actually helps a lot even if you weren`t trying to help.

SickSi99

So it's just coming out the tail pipe? Sounds like you could running too rich/too lean. I'm willing to bet you need to get your A/F ratio checked and get it retuned.

SkoundrelUSA

Didn't read the whole screen door paragraph.

But from what I read, it looks like either bad piston rings or there is possible an oil leak in the turbo and maybe getting into the downpipe

LRC

well. had my old toyota mechanic buddy come over and he said "well the way you explained it to me the first thing i thought was the pcv valve" (pcv or pvc i get it mixed up.) he explained why/how it works and why it being stuck can cause the problem that i have
so we pulled that and some oil dripped out of the hole, he shook it and said mmmhhmm just what i thought, it didn`t move at all.
so he sprayed it out with some cleaner and shook it, it rattled around smooth so we re-installed it and he said, "try it for a bit, if it comes back, check the pcv and if its stuck, go buy a new one. then if the problem still persists have your valve guide seals checked." he doesn`t think its a ring because "it would smoke on acceleration more than idle, and since you bearly burn any oil and you haven`t lost power i don`t see how it could be a ring."
so basically he said check the small possibilities before you start ripping the head off and poking at the pistons.

So, thanks for all the ideas, i`ll be keeping them in mind and checking parts of them along the way.

i`ll report back with how the p-valve works out and what the end problem is.
thanks

LRC

possible. i`ll have someone plug into the K-PRO and see if it needs some love.

LRC

well, cleaned the pcv. hasn't smoked since.