As title states, 2 months ago I replaced the gasket which goes in between the engine block and exhaust manifold. A month later I get the smell, so bad I get watery eyes. Engine pulls hard, keep up with 2000 gsr. The same catalytic converter.No CEL, no hesitation on engine, consumes about a quart every 2000 miles. Any info would be appreciated.

 

hi. heating and air guy here. i have had to sit through 20 hours of seminars on this subject. you cannot smell carbon monoxide. it is an odorless gas. signs of carbon monoxide poisoning are diziness, confusion, a funny taste in the mouth (garlicky) and sleepiness. you are probably smelling nitrogen oxides. are you using synthetic oil? if you are that could explain the smell. synthetic oil has a horrible smelll when it burns.

 

change yr exhaust manifold again, n inspect yr exhaust system.

 

Yup I do use synthetic oil, have used since I bought it used with 55,000 miles.Is it a good idea to back to regular oil, after so many miles with synthetic?thanks

 

no, do not go back to dino oil. i believe you are smelling a combination of synthetic oil and imcomplete combustion in one or more of your cylinders. does your car idle perfectly smooth? have you cleaned your injectors? has your gas mileage suffered? have you seafoamed your engine? seafoam works to some degree to clean carbon deposite out of your combustion chambers. with as many miles as you have on your engine you probably have huge deposits on your intake valves. seafoam and autoRx will take care of the valve deposits over time. i dont know where you live but a major car dealership or auto detailing place that works for the car dealers probably has a steam producing machine for getting cars squeaky clean under the hood. if you run straight steam (NO WATER) into the throttle body while keeping the engine revved for 20 minutes you will go a long way towards cleaning out your combustion chamber and the valves too to a lesser degree. be sure to do it when the engine is hot. my brother is a service manager for a cadillac dealership and it is a standard practice in his job to steam clean the northstar engines through the throttle body when they get them in on trade with more than 50k miles. they have an endoscope like the doctors use to look down your throat. they stick it in a sparkplug hole and rotate the engine by hand. i have seen the before and after pics of what steam does. its ******* amazing. give it a try on your high mileage integra and you should be in alot better shape.

 

Yes, it idles smoothly,have not cleaned injectors ever.gas milage 23-25 mpg.Never changed fuel filter. Thanks for the info.

 

steam that bitch and clean the injectors and you will be in alot better shape.

 

Lol can you describe the smell of carbonmonoxide.

 

Is the car smoking?

I don't know why the one guy told you to change your exhaust manifold? lol, ignore that.

And you shouldnt go from non synthetic to synthetic oils.

 

dont u mean you shouldnt go from synthetic to non synthetic

 

It doesn't matter which way you go, you shouldn't do either. And he went from non synth, to synth.

 

who hasnt gone from non synthetic to synthetic? i do it in every car ive ever owned and i think ive over well over 20 cars..NEVER a problem, now if you go from synthetic to non you'll start to see seals and gaskets wearing out faster than they should..

 

Thats a myth. Totally incorrect. You can switch whenever you want. I wouldn't run synthetic on a 200k mile engine for a number of reasons.

The exhaust smell could be from a leak somewhere in your exhaust stream. Probably somewhere in the exhaust manifold. Do you hear an exhaust leak?

No...replacing a fuel filter or cleaning injectors won't fix that. What is the reasoning behind that thought? "Smells like fuel...add more fuel to make the fuel smell go away"?

Look for an exhaust leak.

 

Can you describe the smell? Fuel vapor/burned oil/rotten eggs/sweet smell?

Glance in your rearview when accelerating hard. Is there smoke, black smoke means too much fuel, blueish black means burned oil, white is water vapor and a small amount is normal, excessive means coolant leak into the combustion chamber.

 

I had that smell too, turned out to be the pcv was bad and broke. So i would check that for sure

 

I thought carbon minoxide was odorless

 

I too am a heating and air tech. you have some things right and others i will fill you in on if you didnt know. Carbon monoxide is odorless colorless gas. That is true. What else is true is that whenever carbon monoxide is present so are Aldehydes which will make you eyes water and things of that nature. so you can physically detect aldehydes and that will indicate Co. Now the taste isnt garlicky as you say. it is actually a metallic taste from the aldehydes. if you put a penny in your mouth that is what it will taste like. now to get those levels in a car is uncommon. Also if you have ever been on a call and noticed white powdery substance that almost looked like it dripped on the flue pipe around the joints. Those are Aldehydes. a co or byproduct of incomplete combustion making carbon monoxide.

 

dont give oil advice ever again


if you're burning 1qt every 2k miles, using synthetic gets expensive. Switch to a good dino oil, i would even use high mileage oil. Pennzoil, valvoline and castrol makes some good high mileage oils. HIgh mileage tend to be thicker to minimize consumption and they have seal conditioners to help reduce/stop leaks.