ok heres the deal... my car(91 civic dx) blows blue smoke when on the throttle... i thought maybe valve seals, i pulled the plug because it seemed like it was only running on 3 cylinders and replaced the plug and it ran fine for a minute then started sputtering again. the old plug was covered in oil... just yesterday it started to lope when idling and now its kind of hard to start. what would be the bext way to test and see if its the seals. ive never done a leakdown so i dont know much thats involved with that but is that what i should do

 

A leakdown is pretty easy....and the tool is pretty cheap. You can find a decent one for $50-60.

 

You said the old plug was covered in oil. Any coolant loss?

 

Not sure about the blue smoke but you need a valve gasket kit, which includes spark plug tube seals. This is why plugs are soaked with oil.

You can go Miscellaneous and Appearance under Sponsor Marketplace, and look up the sponsor ad for statRacing. They sell the kit for my 91 SI for like $28 bucks.

Hope this helps you

 

no coolant loss, and when you say spark plug tube seal...are you talking about the O rings on the valve cover?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Brandyn85 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">no coolant loss, and when you say spark plug tube seal...are you talking about the O rings on the valve cover? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Im pretty sure thats what he means

 

thats not why.... do a leak down test on it...all that is involved is getting one cylinder at a time to top dead center and pressureizing the cylinder with 100psi and listen for leaks...if its hissing at the throtle body u will know its a intake valve,and if u can here it at the ex pipe than u know its a ex valve. if u here at the dipstick hole u will know its rings, or scared journals or cylinder wall...good luck. its the best bet trust me.

 

im going to try to do the leakdown today and see whats goin on... i almost dont want to fix it..but im not ready for a new motor just yet, as to me not knowing what motor to go with, and when i said the plugs were soaked in oil i didnt mean the top of the plug, i know about those O rings. i meant the bottom of the plug, it gets so much oil on it that it seems like its not firing

 

well i decided to say screw it and just pull the head and check things out... once i got the head off i found exactly what the problem was. there was a fairly good size chunk missing out of one of the exhaust valves. so a buddy of mine had a good head layin around so we spent a few hours and threw it all together and all is good now. thanks for the help guys