if it's burning oil? Here's the problem: I bought a gsr swap off craigslist... I didn't do anything to it because i wanted to make sure it was gonna run before doing gasket and seals. I got it for dead cheap thats why.

I drop it in my car and there it goes it runs "beautifully" great compression, leakdown tested and it was fine! But the problem here is that it smokes during start up. Its blue smoke leading me to the fact that oil is burning. So 2 weeks ago i had some cash and decided to do that infamous head gasket. I also took my head to the shop so they could do valve seals and inspect the head.

The ppl who did the valve seals are experts and have a great reputation around the area. They said that the head is perfectly fine. I reassemble everything. I'm pretty sure i did everything perfect since i followed the shop manual for that specific engine and also i did it at UTI with a couple of master techs. Now the car still smokes when vtec engages and just now as i was driving home i noticed blue smoke coming out of the exhaust. So do you guys say rings?

 

How many miles do you have on the engine? I would definitely say it's the rings. You may need to really wring it out a big to get everything back in shape. The last B18C that I picked up had compression that was so bad that it misfired and sputtered for about 2-5 minute before the rings loosened up. It's been running fine every since.

When you pulled the engine apart, were the pistons wet with oil?

Also, why did you say infamous head gasket? My brother ran 10-12 lbs of boost on a stock B18C1 for about 100k miles and the head gasket never gave us any issues.

 

the compression and leakdown will let you know if the rings are bad without pulling the engine apart. keep in mind vtec engines consume oil while in vtec and high rpms.

 

yeah i'm guessing the rings too... i have great compression... 190 all around! vtec kicks in nice and all it's just that that friggin smoke is annoying the crap outta me man! no the pistons were nice and clean! spark pugs looked normal no oil contamination...

i always hear on threads ppl say i have whatever type of smoke ppl already say head gasket! yeah that head gasket is good i'm pretty sure, especially since it's my car and i'm the one who did it i took extra care.

 

talk about high rpms man i went all the way up to 8800 rpms! i'm pretty sure i wasnt making anymore power but it's crazy!

 

yeah if the engine has some miles on it you will notice it a lot more while in vtec. At first I was going to say valve stem seals but you said that you had those replaced, how do the spark plugs look on the end and how old are they?

 

oh I didn't see that you checked the plugs you must've posted when I wrote back... the head gasket you will have white smoke out the tail pipe not blue or black.

 

Infamous head gaskets are the ones they used in EF's and older hondas. They were a fiber type gasket that was notorious for failing. I've never heard of people have trouble with the metal gaskets. In fact, the cure for the old hondas was to convert to the layered metal gasket. Unless you are boosting in a big way, I can't see the gasket being the problem.

I suppose a question that needs to be asked is how much smoke? Does it look like Uncle Buck's car or is is just a little?

 

yeah i always check everything man. Everyday when i come home i check my oil level... coolant, i inspect for leaks! but it's not a lot of smoke its just that i actually look for it, its not that noticeable! yeah i doubt it would be the head gasket since its brand new! and oil level is fine too so it doesnt burn that much!