So my car started running terribly last night, I was warned I was blowing some blue smoke when I got on it a few days before but I dismissed it as normal older engine wear.

Fast forward to last night and it all of a sudden started running terribly, stumbling and sputtering and blowing copious amount of smoke everywhere. I checked the tailpipe and it is very oily, which I assume means my piston rings are f*cked. I'm about to run to autozone and check the compression, but one interesting thing is happening...sometimes it runs fine for a few minutes. Is this in any way out of the ordinary for ruined piston rings? I figured that it might have something to do with my oil pressure possibly not being constant...I don't know, I'm going to ask some people up at autozone, not that I really expect them to know.

Sorry for the long preface, the main question I have is:

Do I need to have my cylinder walls honed at a shop before installation of the rings? How important is this? I'm a broke-a$$ DIY guy, but I was warned against trying to hone them myself...and considering I have never even replaced rings before, I might be pushing it just doing that myself. But hey, necessity is the mother of invention, right? lol

 

Vital.

 

Ah.

 

Well I ended up going to pep boys, and it drove fine all 10+ miles, city and highway, low and high RPM. The guy at pep boys had a theory that might explain the intermittent behavior of the problem. I recently installed H22 injectors and have yet to wire up my o2 sensor...which is leading to a very rich A/F mixture and 16.5 MPG. His theory is that all the unburnt fuel could have been washing away the lubrication in my cylinders, causing the rings to stick, leading to huge amounts of blow-by and the horrible performance and clouds of blue smoke.

How much merit does this theory have? ATM, its the only thing I can think of that would make this an intermittent problem. When it starts running badly and blowing smoke, its like a lightswitch is thrown, no warning, no slow increase of smoke volume, just brrrrrRRRRRBLUHbluhbluh SMOKE. Sound effects not to scale.

 

you should probably install that o2 sensor... one theory of mine is that when your ecu tries to go into closed loop it throws a code for the 02 and just dumps tons of fuel... i'm curious, are stock civic/integra injectors not good enough for your car? i'm assuming you're d series..

 

best part of this thread lol

but yea, what dcrb said. what's the purpose of running the larger injectors?

 

honing it yourself isn't too hard, just get one of these dingle-ball hones

 

Sorry, I should probably have said that I have a JDM B16A OBD0 with a PR3 ECU. And the injectors are (should) only be 240cc, same as the stock injectors. I purchased non-VTEC H22 injectors on ebay, and I'm thinking it might be possible I was sent VTEC H22 injectors. Oh well, its all good ATM.

The problem hasn't reasserted itself since this morning, and I wired up my old 1 wire o2 sensor. I might spring for 2 new o2 sensors tomorrow if my gas mileage hasn't improved. I'm also not entirely sure I wired it up to the right wire, but worst case scenario is I'll just wire it straight to the pin on the ECU.

As of now, my car runs fine. At half a tank of gas I'll be able to estimate whether or not it chilled out on just spraying fuel *****-nilly.

 

That is more of a deglazing method, a diy stone three prong hone would be better,
but a machine shop would be ideal for perfect cylinder wall prep and ring break in.

 

honing is not hard you will see a cross hatch pattern if its done correctly and you should always have it honed when replacing rings to make sure they seal.