Hi people

My dad told me he could smell burning oil when I v-tec'd past him the other night, the smell wasn't there a week ago.
I've done a compression test dry, and test with oil on the tester's washer (wet)

dry: 191, 202, 178, 200

wet: 220, 205, 190, 200

I've searched about, and am assuming these numbers are good, and the differences are ok. The engine has 127k miles on it, (only the last 3k are mine though).

What's likely to be my problem?

Dad reckons valve stem seals, which I suppose is quite likely at this mileage with this many revs on tap.

I found the thread of how to change the seals, but the pictures are gone, is there an updated version anywhere I can look at?

Cheers
Dan.

 

If it's not a lot of oil you're losing -- that's fairly normal -- most Hondas burn oil at the higher RPM's

 

Does your car smoke in the morning after sitting a while? (= bad valve stem seals)

This might help you, https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1604753

 

my friends did that too when he shifted in the high rpms. we got an osc (oil system cleaning) with fresh synthetic oil and it stopped. you might have gunk in there thats burning up when you vtec it.

 

Thanks for the mega-quick responses, most impressive.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by musclehead954 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">my friends did that too when he shifted in the high rpms. we got an osc (oil system cleaning) with fresh synthetic oil and it stopped. you might have gunk in there thats burning up when you vtec it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Fogrive my ignorance, but what's an oil system cleaning? Is it simply changing the oil, as I did that about 2500 mile ago, just after I got it, so I thought I was about half way between changes.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BlueIntegraBoy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Does your car smoke in the morning after sitting a while? (= bad valve stem seals)

This might help you, https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1604753</TD></TR></TABLE>

It doesn't smoke at all (can't really tell at night though) it can sit for ages in the morning (in traffic, morning, evening and night). That's the thread I was referring to, pictures would have made it a little easier to understand some of it though.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ke98248 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If it's not a lot of oil you're losing -- that's fairly normal -- most Hondas burn oil at the higher RPM's</TD></TR></TABLE>

But it's only started doing it within the last week, is this normal?

I don't wish to take up all your time, just want as much of a "it's likely to be XXX" as I can get without taking time off work etc.

Cheers.

 

Changing valve stem seals is going to be a waste of your time.

Your oil control rings are seized to the pistons. Frankly, you should just ignore it and continue driving the car. Check the oil weekly and add as necessary.

 

Holy cr@p, that's something I'd have never thought of, I'm assuming I've got to keep the revs down a bit to prolong the life of the engine now. Time for a new/rebuilt engine.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by prionailurus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm assuming I've got to keep the revs down a bit to prolong the life of the engine now. Time for a new/rebuilt engine.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Umm, no. That's senseless.

How much oil is the engine consuming?

Changing the engine is drastic and completely unecessary at this point. A little bit of oil consumption never hurt anyone. Putting in a quart every 1500 miles is a lot cheaper than buying an engine.

 

Good points - I was sweating for 7 minutes there, thanks for the quick reply. It hasn't lost any (still just on the max) and I've done about 200 mile since dad told me he could smell burning from the exhaust.

Am going to drive it normally, if anything, I need to know what's wrong before I can fix it. My only worry is getting those rings making a mess of the bores.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by prionailurus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Am going to drive it normally, if anything, I need to know what's wrong before I can fix it. My only worry is getting those rings making a mess of the bores.</TD></TR></TABLE>
The oil control rings aren't going to do anything to the bores. The entire point of their existence is to scrape the oil free of the cylinder walls. Over time, they tend to size up in their groove on the piston and stop functioning, allowing oil to get past the compression rings and into the combustion chamber little by little.

If the car isn't consuming oil, then there's really nothing wrong, regardless of what he thinks he's smelling. Just continue driving it. Check the oil level each time you fill the fuel tank, or one morning before starting each week, to get an idea of how much oil the engine is consuming. If you never see the level drop, then there's no problem.

 

Again an impressively fast response.

I'll keep an eye on it, like you've said.

Targa250R you've made my day, I owe you a pint!

 

I'd ignore the smoking until it gets so bad you burn through a quart of oil in a few days, or til the motor dies. You can drive like that forever -- just monitor oil levels.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ke98248 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'd ignore the smoking until it gets so bad you burn through a quart of oil in a few days, or til the motor dies. You can drive like that forever -- just monitor oil levels. </TD></TR></TABLE>
x2 im doing that at 243k miles

 

yeah....

i just seafoamed my whole system for the first time in 13 years....tons of white smoke lol.

you should try it sometime...it might help.

it helped me