Here's the deal. Before I did my head swap (D16Z6) on my 89 Civic Si with ~130,000 miles, my car started to burn some oil and blow blue smoke out the exhaust under WOT above 5000rpms. But the car made good compression and power, so I assumed that the burning oil was from bad or worn out valve guide seals and not from the rings. The D16Z6 head that I bought is from a 95 Civic Ex and the junkyard that I bought it from had it in their yard since 1998 and it was without a valvecover for part of that time. I bought the head last October. I took the head apart and cleaned it up and reseated the valves, but I didn't replace the valve guide seals because I assumed that the head wasn't that old and they didn't need replacing. Well, after installing the head, the car still burned some oil and now it is just getting worse and worse. Now it blows some blue smoke out at half throttle at 4000rpms. The motor made great power and the compression is fine in all four cylinders. What is causing this? I can't figure it out and it is pissing me off. Could it be possible that the valve guide seals are bad from sitting so long in the junkyard? What is the usual cause when Honda motors make good power and compression, but blow alot of blue smoke out the exhaust? Sorry for the long post.

 

1.The sign of leaking valve seals is with manifold vacuum, so at idle you draw in oil.
2.You can have good compression but worn out oil rings. That's what it sounds like.

 

I was thinking that the oil rings might be bad, but the motor makes go compression. So if air can't get by the rings, how can oil?

What do you mean by manifold vacuum? Isn't the manifold normally on vacuum when the car is at idle?

 

anyone???

 

you can have good compression rings and bad oil rings at the same time. it happened w/ my b16..the compression was fine, but i was burning a quart of oil every 450 miles..

 

Hey, I have worn out oil rings on my D15 and the dealership quoted me $1,700.00 to replace them.

Obviously, I laughed at this notion but is this really how much it would cost or are they trying to screw me over?

 

i would think 500-800 labor + parts

 

my 91 hatch has like 195 compression, and burns 1 qt per 120 miles, so dont think that just because you compression is cool, the oil rings are too. Ryan

 

I just recently picked up an 87 CRX SI and drove a quart of oil through it in a 350 mile freeway run at 75-90 mph . I poked around on the web and found an FAQ Tech tip on a site that talks about a procedure for "loosening/cleaning" Oil Rings. I figure I'll go through the "cleaning" process described. Doesn't sound like it can hurt (except maybe the local air quality).
see - http://crx.honda-perf.org/faq/data/5.html

 

I tried that on the hatch, no difference. I am just going to put my old 89 crx engine in it in the next few weeks. Ryan