the.hamburglar

ok at 5psi its fine but anything more than 10 psi this is what is happening. oil leaks through the valve cover gasket and then drips down my head. also and most importantly, oil leaks though all the tube seals and makes a puddle ontop of my spark plugs. everyone one of my plugs was drained with oil. i mean like when you take off your plug wire and look down you cant even see the top of the plugs because there is so much oil in there. i have replaced all seals 3 times and its fine for boost levels 5 and less but once i crank it to 10psi it leaks like a mother into there. also i have tried 2 other valve covers thinking they might be warped.

s2kdre

ur getting pressure into ur engine, whats ur pcv set up like?

the.hamburglar

stock pcv system, i dunno the valve might not be working? yeah there is extreme pressure im guessing. how do i fix this?

mec. pedri

iTrader: (1)

YOU MIGHT HAVE ALOT OF BLOWBY

PUTTING A BREATHER ON IT WILL ELIMINATE THE OILING PROBLEM

the.hamburglar

i have a breather already. yeah that shold release the pressre you would think. but its not.

tek_civic

hmm, seems like too much pressure in your valve cover for that little boost. you can take off your valve cover then drill in another breather hole.

but you should find the cause of this problem. a valve guide that isn't sealing can allow pressure into the valve cover area. this problem really only is noticable when your boosted. the air press up against the closed valve and can escape into the valve cover area through a worn valve guide.

thats my guess

the.hamburglar

huh really? but my compression is fine? i ran a 13.8 the other night with all my tubes full of oil. i was running 7psi boost. so do you think another breather might work?

the.hamburglar

how much work is it to do a valve guides?

tek_civic

firstly a bad valve guide will not show up on a compression test(but it does rule out blow-by). the only real way to test for that is take the valve cover off, and pressurize the intake system. usually you do this by cutting a pop can in half and installing a tire nozzle in it, then taping it onto your throttle body. then put in a regulated 7-10 psi(whatever boost you want to run) into your intake system, then set each piston at TDC. if at TDC on any cyl you see air(or hear) comming from the valve stem area you have found your leaky valve guide.

to fix it you should bring it to someone who knows how, and have a new valve guide installed. you can do it yourself with a little online research. you just need the right tools(a set is rather expensive). for a temporary fix, you can have the problem guide knurled, which should solve the problem for a while, but is not a permanent fix. you have to remove the head for this though, or you might get metal shavings in your engine.

hope i helped

the.hamburglar

so you think its that for sure? there is no way i can put like some gasket sealer grey stuff of the tube seals and valve gasket?

sCeRaXn

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tek_civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">firstly a bad valve guide will not show up on a compression test(but it does rule out blow-by). the only real way to test for that is take the valve cover off, and pressurize the intake system. usually you do this by cutting a pop can in half and installing a tire nozzle in it, then taping it onto your throttle body. then put in a regulated 7-10 psi(whatever boost you want to run) into your intake system, then set each piston at TDC. if at TDC on any cyl you see air(or hear) comming from the valve stem area you have found your leaky valve guide.

to fix it you should bring it to someone who knows how, and have a new valve guide installed. you can do it yourself with a little online research. you just need the right tools(a set is rather expensive). for a temporary fix, you can have the problem guide knurled, which should solve the problem for a while, but is not a permanent fix. you have to remove the head for this though, or you might get metal shavings in your engine.

hope i helped</TD></TR></TABLE>

This guy is on the right track...but please dont go replace your valve guides. You need to replace the valve seals(if theyre really bad). He was right about the way you test it...just wrong on the part youre testing. Do what he said and if there is any air getting in thee you should replace your valve seals. I like to put a little bit of oil on the seal when doing the test...then all you have to look for is bubbles or the air pushing all the oil out(if theyre really shitty). Id also replace the valve gasket and all the grommits and washers around the studs on the vc.

BTW-Im not trying to bust this guys *****. I just dont want you to send your head to the machine shop to get new guides when youre stock ones are prolly fine. Good luck

the.hamburglar

yeah i figured it had to be a seal becuase the guide doesn hold that oil pressure. seals are not hard to do. i might attempt it today. thanks. wait, if my seals were bad then i would get low compression wouldnt i?

sCeRaXn

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by the.hamburglar &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yeah i figured it had to be a seal becuase the guide doesn hold that oil pressure. seals are not hard to do. i might attempt it today. thanks. wait, if my seals were bad then i would get low compression wouldnt i?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not unless all of them were leaking badly. A compression test will hardly ever reveal bad valve seals(ive seen it once and its because the engine had sat for 2 years and all the seals had dry rotted). Its usually best to get a leakdown test performed. Itll pinpoint which seals are bad and is much more precise than the method described earlier. But i have used that method many times with great succes.

shortyz21

good post with lotsa info

the.hamburglar

that kinda sucks. so what if i rebuild the head and the stock valves will not be able to hold the pressure? has that ever happened to anyone?

NJIN BUILDR

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by the.hamburglar &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">stock pcv system, i dunno the valve might not be working? yeah there is extreme pressure im guessing. how do i fix this?</TD></TR></TABLE>

You can't run a stock pcv setup with a turbo.Boost is holding the valve closed when you need it to be open.Do some searches on boosted pcv valve setups.
On another subject you can have blowby past the rings and still have ok compression test results.
But my money is on the pcv...

the.hamburglar

so you think if i do some searching on the pcv and hook something up my problem will go away and it might now even be anything in the head? iv heard about the pcv but didnt think much about it

tek_civic

sorry about the misconception on the guides-seals issue, i thought i rememberd that the seals will wick off excess oil, but the guides will hold in pressure. its been a while since engines class.

but isn't the only way a compression test will tell you that a valve seal is bad is if the valve seat itself is bad? if the valve seat is good then there is no way the compression air(inside the cyl) is able to get to the valve stem. and even if it did get past the valve seat it would just leak out the intake, which wouldn't tell you weather or not the valve seal is good.

thanks for the input.

the.hamburglar

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tek_civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sorry about the misconception on the guides-seals issue, i thought i rememberd that the seals will wick off excess oil, but the guides will hold in pressure. its been a while since engines class.

but isn't the only way a compression test will tell you that a valve seal is bad is if the valve seat itself is bad? if the valve seat is good then there is no way the compression air(inside the cyl) is able to get to the valve stem. and even if it did get past the valve seat it would just leak out the intake, which wouldn't tell you weather or not the valve seal is good.

thanks for the input.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

no its all cool, it got me thinking. so, can everyone agree that i should look up a new way to run a pcv system?