Just did a rebuild on my B18C1, mods are... Comptech intake, Blox IM, ITR .20 pistons, Greddy mani, otherwise everything else is stock. Did a rebuild because my rings were shot and car was burning oil pretty bad before. Got block bored and honed, head got valve job and cleaned up (new seals ect.) Now, compression is good 210psi and there arent any external leaks on motor. It seems that when my car is idling is when the most oil gets burned. There wont be any smoke driving on highway or when I get on it, just when I start car up and have it warm up or when I come to a red light and sit there. When I take off is when the smoke comes out, and I know its oil and not coolant or fuel. Anyone know where the oil might be coming from thats building up at idle and burning? Any issues with the gsr heads that might cause that?

 

Could be valve stem seals but i would say its more with the rings what kinda rings,whats your pistons 2 wall clearence? It's a good idea to have all your tolerences on a paper or on file so you know where your engines at i would leak test it and compression test it again do 10 full cranks with the throttle plate 100% open.

 

new valve stem seals were just put in. Hastings rings (they are correct size rings, we double checked) Dont know piston to wall clearance. Going to do a leak down test this week. Trying to get ideas of what problem could be so we kind of know what we are looking for.

Talked to a guy today and he said that if some honda blocks arent honed a special way that the rings wont seat properly for a while or at all and that will cause it to burn oil... anyone have this problem and did it go away after a while or did you need to tear it apart? I have about 200 miles on motor so far.

 

crank case pressure can cause oil burning and smoking

 

I would drive it some more try to put more miles on it change your pcv valve.Run like straight nd 30 oil and just watch it how much its consuming.

 

did you get the head milled? how about block inspected for warpage? so you got a valve job done.. i would ask the shop what their valve job consist of. maybe they didnt check your valve guides for wear, im sure they would inspect the valve seats but ya never know. some shops might not take the extra time to go over everything. you know a simple thing like your pcv valve not functioning correctly could also cause oil consumption but im no master tech. hopefully you can take it to someone you can trust or at least someone that you know is well experienced. its hard for people on here to diagnose your problem over the internet. im sure someone with a better solution will chime in soon.

 

did you replace oil control orifice and o-ring (#12 and 13 in the picture)

 

head and block were decked, valve guides were checked, whole head was checked over, 3 angle valve job was done. We tried to pinch off the pcv line going back into the intake to see if that would lessen the smoke, then we would know that was the problem if it did, but there was just as much oil burning and smoke out of the exhaust.

As for the oil control orafice, I'll have to find out from the guy that was helping me put the block together (he had built many motors, so this isnt just a backyard job). What exactly does the oil control orafice do? limit oil going to certain parts? keep pressure down?

Im a tech at a dealership, unfortunatly not a honda dealer, and have had several master techs look at this and they seem to think its pointing to problems with the rings/block

 

hg leak?

 

how did you go about seating the rings after initial startup?

 

Double check your piston to wall clearance... Make sure its within Honda specifications for cast pistons... As someone mention before, its hard to diagnose a problem over the internet... It could be any number things... Good luck diagnosing the problem though..

 

at initial start up we ran the motor at about 2k for a while then I drove it around town at various rpms then drove it at a steady rpm around 2500rpms for about 20 miles. Didnt go over 4k rpms for the 1st 100 miles (one reason being I put the blox IM on and didnt know how motor would react due to butterflies not being in IM anymore for vtec. so I waited til I got the Phearable chip in)

And as stated before, it seems to puddle up pretty decent when idling, more than bad valve guides or seals would do. Also, theres some oil consumption shown on all 4 spark plugs already.

Pretty much narrowed it down to oil getting into cylinders somehow wheather its rings not seated or bad hone or whatever. Just seeing if anyone else ran into this problem to say like yeah this happened to me but after about 500 miles or so it stopped burning oil, or saying I tried to wait for rings to seat but after xxx about of miles it didnt get better so I had to rebuild again

 

you didnt seat the rings properly. assuming else everything is in proper working condition.

additional miles wont help.

any miles at a steady rpm are BAD. idleing at a steady rpm is BAD.

get on the dyno and beat on the motor. hopefully you still have a chance to get em seated but its doubtfull.

otherwise cleanup the hone, add new rings and trailer the car to the dyno. the rings will be seated before you leave the dyno i promise.

or if your 100% sure your a/f and timing is good, you can take the car straight to the track and seat the rings by running it hard, however i would rather see you do it on the dyno w/ a knowledgable tuner to be safe.

 

im sorry to say but you should of known not to keep the engine at a steady rpm when breaking her in. this could very well be another case of someone going too easy on the break in procedure.... like NAH2B said, hopefully its not too late. best of luck to ya man

 

not sure what you plan to do next but you should read through this as a future reference...... http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

 

sounds like a piston ring sealing problem....perhaps the rings were accidently installed upside down on the pistons?

pull the head off and have a look at the cylinder walls....

 

^^sure thats possible and so is incorrect P2W and ring gaps too tight/too lose etc, etc.

however this guy says he's a tech and everything is 100% right.

if thats the case than its easy to see from his break in method that the rings didnt seat.

never run a freash motor at steady rpm.
never run a freash motor on the street w/o applying load.
never run a freash motor w/o monitoring a/f especially after swapping intake manifolds or any other mods which can affect a/f

on a fresh motor:

use regular 5w30 oil
start it up, check for leaks while monitoring a/f, oil pressure, fuel pressure and cooloant temp.
intermitently crack the throttle to avoid long periods of steady rpm.
allow the motor to warm up while adjusting fuel pressure, base timing and setting proper idle rpm.
make sure the cooling fan is working properly.
once these things are done, shut it off.

again, make sure not to allow the motor to run at a steady rpm for long periods while doing all that!

during this process you may notice the motor burning oil. its normal.

now go make pulls on the motor while monitoring and adjusting a/f and timing, this will seat the rings.

 

so basically beat the crap out of the motor like I have been doing after the 1st 100 miles or so and if I get lucky they will seat, if not its time to tear down again hu. Guy at machine shop said that hes seen some honda motors that hes done take around 500 miles or so to seat, not saying it cant take 2 miles to happen just that it could take some longer than others. I guess Im going to just keep beating on it and next wknd Im going out of town and trip will put about 500 miles more on it. If still burning oil then I'll tear down again.

Thanks for info guys!

 

something just doesnt seem right about this. It doesnt really smoke during driving, its more of a, oil collects when its idling then when I go or hit the gas if its parked it blows alot of smoke out. seems like if oil was going by the rings it would smoke more when the oil pressure is higher, but its almost opposite.

 

your rings arent seated. when your idleing you have no pressure to force the rings against the cylinder wall so the oil will go right past the rings and youll notice it the most.

when your running the motor hard it forces the rings against the cylinder wall and seals them up.

take the head off and look at the cylinder walls.

 

and the more you drive it on the hwy or let it idle, the more harm your doing.

trust me i know from experience.

pull the head.

 

ok, with the rings not seated if I take it apart would I be ok with just putting new rings on, cleaning the cylinders up and putting it back together or does the block usually have to go to the machine shop again after this?

 

you have to do a cleanup hone

i have done it w/ the motor still in the car before but i wouldnt reccomend it.

if your 100% sure the motor is burning oil then it will have to come back apart.

what exactly is aftermarket or changed performance wise on this motor and ecu? are you monitoring a/f using a wideband 02? is your timing set properly?

 

things that arent stock on my car are... Comptech intake, Blox IM, ITR pistons, Greddy exhaust mani., Phearable chipped ecu. (set up for mods given above)

I am not monitoring a/f
Timing is set properly

 

you should monitor AFR....especially after some mods that can greatly impact the requirements for fuel. you could be running pig rich and washing the oil off the cylinders...or dangerously lean and you can scuff up the piston skirts.

a chipped ecu is useless unless it was dyno tuned for YOUR engine.....the only thing good about that ecu is the empty socket that makes it easy to program something proper for your setup.