I have a 94 civic with a d15bvtec jdm motor. When I first bought it, it would smoke white(sometimes blueish) just a little when you rev above 5k but the car had no cat so I thought that was the issue. I put on a cat and it has slowly started to smoke more and more. It would smoke on start up and then about 60 secs later stop unless I was in the high rpms. Now it smokes all the time. I let it run and then turned it off and pulled one of the plugs(which are brand new) and there is black all over them. I drained the oil and it was black and I looked at the coolant so it does not seem to be mixing(head gasket issue). When i changed the oil I used Lucus additive that is suppose to help seal leaky seals but it only smokes worse now. Also after the car was off there was still smoke coming out of the cylinder where I pulled the plug. I am sure its oil getting in the motor but what I am wondering is if I remove the head will I be able to physically see if the rings on the pistons are bad or if the oil is coming from somwhere else like valve seats or something?? I am not brand new to motors(have done a few motor swaps) but have not had to troubleshoot or rebuild an engine yet. Thanks everyone

 

Is there oil in the spark plug tubes?

 

no there is not oil in the spark plug tubes.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bigturbo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">no there is not oil in the spark plug tubes. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Valve stem seals then maybe. Have you done a compression or leakdown test?

 

I did a compression test and they were all between 125 and 130. I dont know how to do a leakdown test. Would that tell me if it were something in the head or something on the bottom end???

 

Your rings are probably going bad. I think the compression ratio on a jdm d15 is like 9:5 so you should be getting like around 170 or so.

 

Man that sucks. I figured that was it but when you hope its something else so badly, you try to steer away from the bad. looks like the motor is coming out this weekend then. How hard is it to replace piston rings?? I have removed heads and replaced headgaskets before. i have also done motor swaps but never rebuilt a bottom end.