I have an oil leaking and burning problem of the garden ITR variety. I've noticed a small crack in the spot weld on the upper bolt bracket on the breather box, but I'm not sure this is enough to "consume" (read: leak onto the header) 2 qts. of oil at my last track day.

My first suspect is the rear main seal since I'm so good at assuming the worst (w00t), but with no oil showing up on the back side of the flywheel (and you'll even notice surface rust on the back of it in the pics below), I'm not so quick to jump at that notion. The car is a MY 2001 with about 79k on it. It has had some harder driving, just as any R has, but I'm confident in Honda's engineering abilities and wouldn't think the seal would let go this early in life.

Thus, I've resorted to pictures. Let me know what you think and thanks in advance.















-Mike, who is an OG HTer just wanting his R to run right

 

My 2001 R's rear main seal went out at 9,000 miles. I heard it's (semi) common. I didn't fix it though - it was under warranty then, so I have no idea what it looked like under there.

 

I'm not thinking its the rear main. I think the first thing I'm going to do is order a new oil pan gasket and a new breather box assembly. I'll install those and see how things go, unless someone else here has some advice or has a better plan.

 

2 qts sounds quite a bit. have you tried just wiping everything clean and then seeing where oil is coming from? or maybe changing out the oil pan gasket?

 

From my experience, if the rear main seal is ripped, torn, etc. you will have plenty of oil all over the flywheel and clutch disk.

 

2 qts was over about 150 track miles. I didn't think that was crazy. For comparison, I went through 3/4 of a tank of gas in like 86 miles on track. I drove home at low RPMs and didn't have a problem with consumption. If I keep the car out of the higher RPMs, it seems to hold its oil well.

I think my next course of action is to wipe it all down, install the new gasket and breather box, and add some dye to the oil... then go ream.

This is exactly why I was thinking it wasn't the rear main. Everyone I've talked to so far seems to think the same. It's a big assumption, but it seems like a good one.

 

if it i has to do with high rpm, isn't that normally attributed to valve seals / blowby?

 

Most all engines will use oil at high rpm's, even more with higher miles. Do you notice a fare amount of black stuff on the bumper above the exhaust tip?

You should try to clean all the oil off the block then drive and recheck to pin point the leak.