Im looking to buy a GSR. But it has 228K miles.

The car runs fine. Replaced timing belt and water pump. No mods to engine.

Whats the average life of a DOHC VTEC engine?

It is only driven as a Daily Driver.

 

depends on abuse. highway driving is rough on honda engines. my gsr motor started burning oil pretty bad at around 100k. i would burn about a 1 quart every 1000 miles. it also smoked while driving from the oil. with that kind of mileage i would do a quick rebuild like gaskets, seals, rings, and bearings just so you know everything is in good shape for awhile longer before you have bigger problems, but it's up to you.

 

yea 4k rpms at 80 mph hurt lol

 

yea or vtec all the time on the highway hurts lol

 

same with me. doing all new seals and gaskets on the gsr motor my bro is giving me. New dizzy, sparkplug wires, sparkplugs...just tons of stuff

 

i'm still on my factory distributor and wires actually. i think i have the only honda that hasn't had a coil or igniter failure lol

 

sounds like it was taken care of then before you got it....its hard to ask how long they last...some will go forever and some are just bad seeds.. take care of it and it will take care of you....but i must say my b18 had 218,000 when the timing belt finally gave out

so i found another motor completely rebuilt it and hot tanked everything myself, and i must say it runs like a dream nothin beats a freshly rebuilt engine...2600 miles and counting so far

 

just gotta keep up maintenance on it and itll pay off.mine was daily driven and plus i ran it hard.definitely used the vtec. 240k then broke/burnt valves.decided to rebuild but my original pistons and everything are still in good shape.so they definitely hold up with tlc

 

mine's has 230k and still running strong. just minor leaks and oil smell lol. if you just keep up maintenance then you should be fine. that motor can last youa very long time if you just take good care of it.

 

228k is too high if you are planning to buy the car because you don't know if the owner beat that motor up. Do a compression test to see how healthy the motor is.

 

haha ive had one in every honda ive owned go out!

 

i wonder why the first guy had oil burning at 100k?? im about to buy one this weekend, an 01 gsr, with 108K. looks decent though.

 

from my experiences with honda motors as well as people i hang out with that own them, they alllll burn oil.. specially if your in vtec alot.. just something that comes along with owning a honda i guess. just do your best in checking ur oil regularly and keep it topped off.. and anything you take care of will last forever.. honda motors are known for taking a pretty good beating and stayin alive ;-)

 

not a gsr but my 91 b18a1 has 249k miles on it, no mods.

it burns oil, i cant say how much off the top of my head but it runs really strong.

good luck.

 

they can last a long time as long as you:
DONT LUG THE ENGINE
dont beat on the engine while its cold
change oil in a timely fashion(3-5K)
not taking to vtec on every light
dont shift at 2k rpms thinking your honda is a torque monster
and lastly, it had a good break in.
a mod on this forum name patrickgsr has a gsr with 290k original internals and burns 0 oil, from what i read in his post

my 01 teg has 80, i use castrol syntec and burns 0 oil

 

^^ True.

 

driving style is a lot of it. if you shift at 8k all the time you will burn more oil, some pussyfoots shift at 4k and burn zero oil. both engines could be fine, or, who knows. one may have been ran hard cold a few too many times.

 

If it has that high of milage it should have had the water pump and timing belt changed twice.

 

If the car runs good, doesnt leak oil, looks fairly clean under the hood, doesnt tick smoke or knock, buy it and be done with it.

 

No, we've never had that happen.

It's true that some last longer than others, but I think a lot has to do with maintenance.

I have never heard of a timing belt failing if it was changed when scheduled. The maintenance schedule for the '94 says to change the timing belt every 90K miles or 6 years, whichever comes first. The later years they changed it to 105K miles or 7 years. At 218K miles, you should have changed it at least twice. If you didn't, well... I guess you regretted not changing it, huh?



We've had our '94 GS-R since new, and always did all the maintenance at least as often as recommended in the manual. At 130K miles, our '94 GS-R was burning a quart every 1100 miles, and at 160K miles, was burning a quart every 500 miles. At 175K miles, we found coolant in the oil, which means we HAD to rebuild it, so we did. Since the rebuild, it's burning almost no oil (a quart every 3500 miles).

 

Did an oil change on a 95 GSR at my old job that had 329,000 miles VIN matched and the guy said he bought it new and religiously did the maintenance. I have a friend with a 90 DX hatch thats rockin the original engine and it has 303,000. Its all in how its taken care of

 

'95 GSR w/249K on the clock. bought it in '00 w/100K. 2nd clutch, timing belt and water pump was just done 1K ago. when i first got it, it saw redline everyday for about 8 months. then it saw about 350 miles every other weekend. first 5 years i had it i put roughly 120K on it, since then, only put 30K on it as a daily driver. runs surprisingly good, burns about 1.5qts per oil change (5k) and smokes out the tail pipe when in vtec. overall i would do it all over again. at one point, i was going to sell it, but my car took me everywhere i wanted to go with NO problems, even as hard as i drove it, so i decided not to sell.

 

Nope, original distributor here, but I change the plug wires every 2-3 years.

heh that would be me 276,000 yesterday, actually, all original internals.

In the past year I have replaced my oil pan gasket, oil cooler o-ring, and ALL coolant hoses on the entire engine. As of now, the engine leaks ZERO fluids of any kind, and it burns very little oil.

I changed the oil over Thanksgiving weekend when I replaced the oil cooler o-ring. Then I changed it again a couple of weeks ago after about 3500 miles. The oil was still right at the top hole on the dipstick, maybe a millimeter below, and I had not added any oil at all between Thanksgiving and 2 weeks ago.

I've owned the car since it had 89K on it. Previous owner used Castrol GTX oil. I used Mobil1 synthetic for about 15K miles, then switched to Valvoline MaxLife when I couldn't get the M1 as cheap as I could anymore. Been running MaxLife 5w30 oil year-round for the past 170K+ miles, changed every 3 months/3K miles, with an STP oil filter. Car still gets 32+ mpg highway.

Now I'm considering switching to Amsoil 0w-30, as the thinner cold weight should drastically reduce engine wear during cold startup. Amsoil has a 1-year/15K mile oil drain interval, so an oil change once a year would only cost about $50. compared to $20+ every time at least 4 times a year right now.

 

it really really depends on the previous owners driving characteristics IMO!

I can not see how highway driving can hurt an gsr unless you downshift like crazy, have vtec set to engage at lower rpms or do not maintain the engine.

first of all an engine will get hurt because of load,resistance,heat,pressure,rpm which none are the case for an gsr at just 80mph! it would hurt the car much more to drive through traffic rather than that actually. if the engine doesnt see very high rpms that often, doesnt have to much of mods or high output,doesnt have performance cams or F/I, doesnt see downshifts at already high speeds(my friend downshifts his at 60-80 from 5th to 3rd and 4th and very fast by powershifting it=just stupid) and if it has been maintained properly than why shouldnt it last long? its all about driver, but on average that is a very high mileage for a gsr! I certainly would have it go through a leakdown and compression test and find out the health state of that engine!

 

so your saying that driving a car at 4k rpms for an extended period of time doesnt hurt an engine?