About a month ago, i had broken a valve and needed to pull my head to replace it. its a 2001 PY ITR with 84k miles. I figured instead of just replacing the valve and seal, I sent the head to a machine shop locally and they did a complete valve job on it. When I put the head back in, I noticed that i'm burning alot of oil (blueish smoke) Im getting a strong exhaust/fuel stench in the car while driving and at lights sometimes i will see a puff of smoke come pass me when i stop. Im really stuck in a dilemma as too what would be causing this. Ive talked to a bunch of ppl and i get all kinds of different answers. I ran a compression test and it came back fine. Ive put about 400 miles on the car since the valve job and ive burned through about 3/4 of a quart of oil. I finally gave in and called the machine shop. The guy I talked to said that since they replaced all the seals and such, it created such a good vaccum that it wore out the rings on the pistons with 84k miles on them. It doesnt sound right to me for some reason and wanted some input on Honda-Tech and fellow ITR owners.

 

wearing out the rings because of more/increased vacuum... Unlikely. But it could be just burning more oil because the ITRs do that...
Rings, #1 cause of oil burning.

 

were your cylinder walls scored? i find it hard to believe a broken valve didn't take out something with it.

 

Not hard to believe, valves can break and not cause a single bit of harm.
if lucky and the part goes right out the exhaust...

 

...It would then be found in the catalytic converter.

 

^i have no cat...just a hi-flo test pipe...

Cylinder walls were UN-scarred! they looked flawless...still has the cross-hatching on them!

Is it possible that breaking/burning the valve would have also caused the rings to lose tension? I jsut dont know why my compression test would come back with all the same numbers across the board! and i know ITRs burn oil but 1 qt in 400-600 miles? thats quite a bit and still doesnt explain why i have blueish smoke coming out the exhaust. I thought it might have been bc i had oil in my exhaust/header from the burnt valve but that wouldve burned off by now with 500 miles afterwards right?

 

when you put the head back on did you run the pcv right? i had a guy install a broken pcv and had a bad oil problem like you stated.

 

ill have to check it out! thanks

 

replaced the pcv valve today and it didnt seem to help any....still smoking. I even threw in my stock OBDII ecu hoping that would help too, but nothing!

 

Did they replace the valve seals when they did the valve job?

 

Even if they did, valve seals are easy enough to ruin with improper install.

 

This sounds like there is a problem with the work they did on your head. My guess would be leaking valve seals. (#2 cause for burning oil)

 

do a leakdown test.

 

they did replace the valve seals when they did the valve job...im leaning towards something with the head as well! the machince shop is a pretty reputable local shop tho! ive never heard any complaints about them.

Im waiting for my mechanic to get back from vaca to do a leakdown test (i dont have one)