skate1968

Question: Does a 'piston soak' have a good chance of reducing oil consumption in a 1991 Civic DX smoker?

Other websites recommend a "piston soak." Saturn owners report less oil burning. But I haven't found much about it on this website.

It's basically taking out the spark plugs.
Dripping an once of Marvel Mystery Oil or some other cleaner in the cylinder
through the spark plug hole..
Letting it sit overnight.
turn the crank manually to purge cleaner from cylinder (avoid hydrolock)
Start it up.
It smokes a good bit
The top piston rings are cleaner (and hopefully become better lubricated.

I've already replaced the pcv valve, considered valve stem seals, used thicker oil, etc. I know my consumption is from worn rings.

The other option is to just use Lucas UCL or some other fuel additive to clean the top end. I want to get my engine as clean as possible before considering a High Mileage Oil, Bardahl Stop moke, Restore, CD2 sealer, etc.

skate1968

Has anyone heard of this? I've done several the website several times and found very little.

PreStaged12s

a good tuner once told me the best way he has ever seen to clean the combustion chambers in a motor is to squeeze nitrous, claims best way to clean it out, but thats all its gonna do, clean it out, if your rings are worn you cant "easy fix" that, only thing to really fix it is to replace the rings.

Runnerdown

Yes, I have heard of this. Personally, I believe the only correction to the problem would be to replace the rings. On honda motors, they either are just not sealing anymore or cannot move freely due to sludge buildup. The oil ring has almost zero tension, and is prone to sticking in the groove. I have re-ringed many sohc and dohc motors with great results.


Prevention of this is much easier then correcting it. Many companies have products that claim to remove the sludge to free up the rings, I have yet to see this happen. This is baked in deposits, and is even diificult to get off when its all apart.


Here are some D16y7 rings I replaced:

-Whitey-

if the rings need replacing then you should replace them using a temporary fix aka "a bandaid" on the problem isnt going to do anything....espically pneumatic oil.

i know rotary guys do this to raise compression on thier apex seals when they are worn..but again..its a temporary solution.

Combustion Contraption

Everyone is looking for that magical fix in a bottle.

eightvalver

look up seafoam...same thing and some people use water...the steam cleans the carbon deposits

skate1968

Thanks to everyone for responding.

Right now I don't believe that a ring job on my 1.5L 92HP would be the best option for me. Rather i'm thinking about saving my money for some kind of swap OR a new car. If i'm going to put up some cash i'll want some more horsepower along with newer rings.

"Many companies have products that claim to remove the sludge to free up the rings, I have yet to see this happen."

Check out my experience with Auto Rx.

http://auto-rx.com/pages/pov64.htm

I'm now looking at a top end cleaner. I'm looking to clean the areas that Auto Rx did not get to.

If there is NO way to reduce oil consumption before replacing rings, so be it. I'll just keep topping off. Thanks for reading.

mmuller

if you want to clean your combustion chambers and top of pistons you can just use water..and it works the best