Takumi Fujiwara

Background on my motor: Built with forged pistons & rods. The Head I purchased ended up having 3 bent valves. Had the valves (OEM) and had all the valve seals replaced. Headwork was done by a domestic machine shop (long story). No work done on guides, and no specs were given regarding any clearances. My car eats 1 quart of oil every 300-400 miles of mostly highway driving.

Anyway, I got the intake manifold off and snapped these shots. My car sat for only about 4-5 hours before I took these photos. I know that people say to check the valves for oil running down them after it sits overnight, so maybe I'll take some pictures in the morning as well.

I wonder if some of this oil is from the intake hose that goes to the valve cover nipple. I'm running the endyn catch can with open element breather. I'm using a clear hose to the intake arm. I've noticed that there is oil on the barb that goes into the intake arm, as well as some oil on the outer part of the throttle body opening. Inside walls of the TB are kinda "dusty" for lack of a better word, but not really oily. Anyway, on with the pics, there are 3 for each.

(I'll be running a leakdown this Sunday to check for rings or valve seats, this thead is to see if anything looks blatantly wrong with the seals, valves, etc...) Thanks for looking!

Cylinder 1




Cylinder 2




Cylinder 3




Cylinder 4




I noticed that in some ports, the bottom part (dish) are black in both sides in the cylinder. Then there are some where 1 side in a cylinder is clean, and the other black. Then in others, the opposite side is clean, and the other black. Head gurus, please respond.

Bailhatch

great pictures

Looks like junk from your PCV and valve cover breather to me. As to why they are not all the same, I'm not sure.

Takumi Fujiwara

I'm not running a PCV, I'm running the Endyn catch can in the off road setup (Open air filter element on top of the catch can).

Currently, I have a hose going from the intake hose to the valve cover nipple, could any of the oil be from this? I've used a clear hose between the intake & valve cover nipple to see how much oil actually reverses direction at high RPM. After a while, if I pull the barb out of the intake arm, I see some oil at the end of it. Also, when I take off the intake arm, I can see oil (or something liquid) on the OUTSIDE of the TB. The INSIDE is dusty, but not really oily.

Thanks for looking. I can use all the help I can get... my wallet is sick of buying gas & oil every fill-up. I feel like I'm driving the original VW bug or something...

HiProfile

Damn, I wish my girl was that dirty...

If it was from the pcv system, it would be dark all over. Not oily, the oil is most likely from the seals. If that barb you are talking about is the one from the crankcase to the IM runner, then it would only darken those 1-2 ports - if connected still. I'm not an expert on the color department. Do a compression & leakdown test to check the rings.

Takumi Fujiwara

Doing a leakdown this Sunday.

B18C1CYA

I would be looking into valve seals , cus the oil looks like it could be coming down the staem , It depends on what kinda seals they use and what not , cus i had a seal problem once and put in a new set and was all good , I would think if your guides where messed up you would see some messed up wearing on the valves,

wantboost

iTrader: (2)

yep, looks like valve seals to me too

Takumi Fujiwara

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by wantboost &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yep, looks like valve seals to me too</TD></TR></TABLE>

Geez, these are new valve Honda valve seals... The arais on one side, and the cheap OEM ones on the other side. I guess it pays to send it to a specialist... expletive UPS for damaging the head during shipping... if I didn't have to spend over a month getting my money from UPS and the seller who insured it for only $100 when I asked for him to insure it, it would have gone to portflow. Lesson learned "Asking seller to insure item is not enough. Must ask to insure for the FULL price I paid." What's with these ******** that find the loopholes?

Well, I'll run the leakdown this sunday to see if anything else is wrong.

Do those valves look like they could be leaking enough for a quart of oil every 300-400 miles? I have probably about 10k miles on this motor.

NCchris

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Takumi Fujiwara &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm not running a PCV, I'm running the Endyn catch can in the off road setup (Open air filter element on top of the catch can).

Currently, I have a hose going from the intake hose to the valve cover nipple, could any of the oil be from this? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Does the crankcase see boost? This could aggravate a seal or oil ring problem. I am making an assumption that you are boosted. Could be a wrong assumption, jus trying to help.
chris

KiddEng

Hey im in the same boat as you, i've got a built bottom end 6k miles and about 20k on the stock head. Im also losing about 1qt every 6-700 miles

How is your turbo? any oil in the charge pipes?
also let me ask you, do you notice smoke on startup/warm up? On mine, the first 5 mins of warmup theres white/blue smoke coming out and after that its steam.

and what about when you drive? do you notice any of the blue smoke at any point in driving?

heres my thread on the issue, not to thread jack https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1494762 but it seems like we may have the same symptoms so more opinions can't hurt.

im going to replace the valve seals and possible the guides if need be and see if that'll solve the problem

cubish

if the seals are new it could be a valve guide problem

Takumi Fujiwara

-I'm not boosted, yet.
-Seals are new, but the work was done at a domestic shop and no clearances were given.
-I see a little bit of white smoke when I first start my car until my car is warmed up. I assumed this was normal for forged pistons.
-I see smoke if I downshift and accelerate. No smoke at the dyno during tuning.

thanks for looking!

cubish

could be that they never bothered seeing if the valve guides were worn and have too much clearance...same thing just happen to my nitrous car...put brand new seals in it and it was smoking...took the header off and 2 exhaust valves had oil running down them...changed the guides and now its fine

B18C1CYA

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cubish &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">could be that they never bothered seeing if the valve guides were worn and have too much clearance...same thing just happen to my nitrous car...put brand new seals in it and it was smoking...took the header off and 2 exhaust valves had oil running down them...changed the guides and now its fine</TD></TR></TABLE>

Same thing happened to me , a shop used some shitty seals and swaped them for some felpro ones wich are made from viton and is fine now , but yeah thats how mine was , the oil was actually leaking out around the exhaust port , pull the header also and see whats up ,

Targa4Life

just a question, is it just me or does one of the valve look father open than the other on Cylinder #3? If so is this right?

Takumi Fujiwara

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Targa4Life &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">just a question, is it just me or does one of the valve look father open than the other on Cylinder #3? If so is this right?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I noticed that too, I should check my lash

Takumi Fujiwara

Here are my exhaust ports:

cylinder 1:



cylinder 2:



cylinder 3:



cylinder 4:

Muckman

iTrader: (2)

What camera is that with and are you using a flash?

Weq

sounds like valve guides to me. same thin happened to me (smoke on startup etc). My head was done by a domestic shop also! they sucks at honda head's.

Takumi Fujiwara

The parking light isn't that great, so yes I used flash. It's a Sony DSC-T1/Cybershot 5Megapixel.

.RTErnie

amazing pictures. I have no idea...ive never seen or had these problems before.

B18C1CYA

I would have to say , valve seals and maybe the guides are bad that had the bent valves , but throw some seals in it and see what happens , maybe they put the intake seals on the exhaust side , wich is a not a smart thing to do see how they cant take the heat and melt , lol

Takumi Fujiwara

These are new seals in here. So either they weren't installed correctly, although I don't know how you can screw that up, or the guides are bad... Still locating a compressor to see if maybe the rings are part of the problem so I can kill 2 integras with 1 bazooka.