FFAllen

91 CRX has been sitting 15 years. Changed oil and coolant and replaced valve cover gaskets and spark plug seals. After new plugs were installed i ran it for a little while. Seemed strong. Drove it seemd ok. Inspected plugs again today after running it for a while. Now it looks like cyl 2 (center left) has milky oil in it. All plugs had oil on them but not like before i replaced the vc gskt. Before i checked the plugs i revved it pretty good and it seemed ok up to about 7k then it seemed like it didnt want to rev. It gained eng speed slower than in lower rpms. When it settled back to idle it was miss firing. Help lol.

TacoCat

Pull the dip stick and look there. If you have a milkshake, you probably have a blown head gasket. Changing a head gasket isn't hard and when you do, you generally want to take care of the tensioner, water pump and timing belt also. Even if you have little experience, this can be done over a weekend if you have the right parts and tools. Always use an OEM head gasket or Golden Eagle if the engine is bored.

FFAllen

Thank you so much for taking the time to help. I did change TB, WP, and tensioner. Forgot to mention it has a B16A.

I can look down into the cyl and see the top of the piston. It is dry but black from carbon. Do you think it could be valve stem seals or lower spark plug gaskets? Are there water passages near these parts? This area is above the HG so I'm wondering if it might be a crack.

I think I may have accidentally messed it up somehow. Being old and sitting for so long. I was working on it and the throttle cable was stuck wide open and I didn't notice. I started it up cold and it hit the rev limiter a few times then it dropped down in rpm and was slow to climb after but I shut it off right then when it dropped in rpm. The next day I let it fully warm up (I was replacing the radiator and t-stat), revved it again and it seems slow to climb past 6-7k rpm. I'm going to get a compression and leak down test ASAP.

The car has no hood on it RN and it did rain while I was out running errands (I was in a different car). I had to take the cap off the dist and there was a lil water in it. It might be water from rain in #2 cyl's spark plug hole but idk. The spark plug wire's cap was fully seated at the time.

TacoCat

The only place oil and water can come in contact is the head gasket, a cracked block or head and the oil cooler (but it would have needed to rot away which is unlikely). Clearly you still have a leak on the valve cover and water mixing with the oil leak will result in a milkshake. Water in the distributer can cause the car to misfire. Again, check the engine oil. Also, get a torque wrench and torque the valve cover to spec or it will leak. If you over tighten it you will break off the studs.

Other than every rubber seal on the engine leaking, there isn't much that would go wrong with the engine if it sits for 15 years unless it was stored in high humidity and moisture got into the cylinders. While you may have damaged something in the valve train from over reving it, it would be more likely to spin a bearing due to low oil pressure. Check the valve lash just to make sure nothing is wrong with the valves. This would be advisable as a regular maintenance item anyway. If anything is way out of spec, it is worth investigating. You will know you spun a bearing. Pull the dip stick and see what the oil actually looks like. If you want to see if you spun a bearing, pull the oil filter, cut it open and see if there is metal in the pleats.

It seems like you are just in the process of reviving an old engine. Just take a step back, assess the situation and don't make assumptions. A million different things could be wrong. Take an analytical approach to troubleshooting, learn how the system works, identify the actual problem, analyze the potential causes, eliminate the possibilities through testing and fix the problem. Maybe the engine is dead, but probably not.

Also, tracking down oil leaks is not fun but there are a few places it will commonly leak from: VTEC spool valve o-ring, valve cover, cam cap, distributer, rocker arm shaft caps, high pressure oil pump o-ring, oil pan, head gasket, front main seal, rear main seal, trans shifter seal and trans axle seals. Often oil will be seen in places further away from their source and can cause you to blame things that weren't broken. The best thing is to replace them all but that isn't always the easiest thing to do.

FFAllen

I appreciate the reply. Thanks so much. I'm going to double check the timing and get the tests done.