okay, so im having some lags with my h22a4 and decided to do a tune up on my motor if it would help out a little. so when i pulled the spark plug wire from cylinder #1, the bottom was soaked almost 1/2 way with oil. so i bought a valve cover gasket set and replaced the spark plug tube seals(rubber o-rings) on all of them, valve cover gasket, and gromets. this was done about 3 weeks ago and everything was fine until i checked it yesterday and cylinder 1 had about 1/4 oil in it. i dont know what else to check on so if anyone knows please help me out... thanks

 

Maybe the seal around wasn't sealed all the way, or was sealing just enough to last a little while until it leaked again. Id take it off and reseat the seal. Theres no other way for it to leak

 

okay i will try that. but i did add hi temp silicone seal on them too.

 

just a question. where did u get the gasket and seals? Cause i work in a shop and we get all our parts through NAPA, and there parts are not the best, same with Schucks, (we go through them from time to time). and they do give us faulty parts. I would suggest, if you still continue to have this problem, to go to HONDA, and spend the LITTLE bit of extra money for a quality part..........just a thought.

 

yea i think thats what i shouldve did. but i got mine from advanced auto. its the felpro brand.

 

I just did a valve adjustment and replaced all the cover seals and grommets along the way. All went well and I drove the car for couple hours and gave it another inspection to make sure I wasn't leaking oil anywhere. I pulled all the plug boots and noticed oil in the #3 hole. My first thought was the cover seal but I did use new gaskets and I torqued everything to spec. I went ahead and pulled all the plugs and had trouble getting the socket over the #3 plug. Coincidence? No. During the lash adjustment I left the plugs in so as not to get any crap in the combustion chamber. When I was done and putting it back together I pulled the plugs to check them and immediately put them back when they looked good and the gap was still on. Somehow in the course of putting plug #3 back in the seal washer got cocked and jammed on the plug so when I thought I bottomed the plug to the cylinder head I was actually hitting the washer. This was just enough of an opening to let oil weep up into the plug hole. The threads in the head are fine so I replaced all the plugs. Once they were all down appropriately the oil weeping went away.

My $.02

 

Again, when I just did my lash adjustment, I ordered a felpro gasket kit for my 2000 Prelude base and I got a kit for some SOHC motor. The distributor insisted that I ordered the wrong one and that I didn't tell them the right engine configuration because their computer was saying that it was the right kit for my car. I got my money back, told the distributor to f*ck off, then went to a HONDA DEALER and ordered the parts from them.

(edit )As a note:

The spark plug gaskets were packaged seperate from the cover gasket and were thin compared to the used ones I pulled from the cover. I assume my kit was mislabeled or mispackaged but they were definitely a good .06-.09" thinner then the OEM pieces I picked up from the dealer. Hopefully you didn't get the same wrong parts I got as that could give you a weak seal.

SOHC engine on a 5th gen? Are you f'ing kidding me?

 

LOL sounds like the parts guy didnt know what he was talking about....There is a sohc motor in a 5th gen suprisingly but it was available over seas somewhere.....i think in Europe...

 

hmm.. i might have to check that out again because i did have the guy double check it to see if it is really for a base model h22a4. thanks for the advice

 

i think this may be part of the problem. i just ran into this same issue with my sisters f22b2 accord. tons of oil in the spark plug tubes. took everything apart and there was a mess of honda bond all over the tube seals (from previous owners timing belt change). cleaned everything up, added fresh seals and its fine now. as long as everything is torqued correctly you shouldnt need silicone.

honda parts are nice but the felpro kit should be just fine. also make sure the tube seals dont get pinched during install. lay the cover on and make sure they are all nice and flat and continue to check as you torque.

 

thanks for your help. i just noticed that the previous owner stripped some of the valve cover studs that the grommets go onto so im going to order that and see if that can cause the seals to not completely seal the oil from getting into the tube. but the funny thing is ONLY cylinder #1 has the oil. the rest are fine and i compressioned it at

cyl.#1 - 200
cyl.#2 - 180
cyl.#3 - 175
cyl.#4 - 175

 

you are just getting oil above the spark plug right? or are you saying you are getting oil into the combustion chamber causing increased comrpression results? or both?

 

worth the money

 

idk if theres oil in the chambers thats causing increase to my results but when i take the plug off and look down into the spark plug hole, i see oil around the plug.

 

if you have oil inside cumbustion chamber too its rings

EDIT: is there oil on the tip of the spark plugs?

 

You shouldn't put any honda-bond on those tube seals, and aftermarket gaskets are garbage, I don't care who says otherwise.

 

okay so i pulled out all of the spark plugs and 2-4 doesnt have oil on the threads but the first one did because it already had oil in the tubes and might have gotten oil on it while i pulled it out. i cleaned it all out and rethreaded the vc studs. they are tight now so im going to drive it for a couple of days and see if that'll solve the problem. the old nuts were all stripped.

 

also one of my buddy said that the h22's have another seal by the cams or cam shafts and that could be where it's leaking from. does anyone have any experience with this?

 

If it's on the plugs then it's the tube seals. The seal that your friend is thinking about is the cam cap which all belt driven DOHC and distributor-less belt driven SOHC Honda motors have to seal on the head at the opposite end of the cam gear. This seal has absolutely nothing to do with you having oil in the spark plug tubes though.

 

okay thanks. hopefully the problem goes away

 

This.

The Hondabond or Honda Ultra Flange Sealant should only go on the hard-angled corners of the perimeter valve cover gasket where it fits around the cam humps. Use 1 dab on each corner. You don't use any on the spark plug tube O-rings.

It all depends on the manufacturer.

Ishino/Stone, NOK, Arai Seisakusho, and Nippon Leakless gaskets are not garbage, otherwise Honda wouldn't buy all of these brands and repackage them with Honda labels . . .

 

^Yeah those kinda fall under a different category IMO but the stuff he's using is the super cheap stuff from advance.

Your problem just isn't going to go away unless you fix it, go to the dealer and get the valve cover gasket kit, comes with VC gasket, tube seals and the grommets for the bolts.

 

REPLACE THE GROMMETS IF YOU ARE STRIPPING THE NUTS ON THE STUDS.

Sorry for the caps but when the grommets get squished too thin that's when you end up bottoming out the nut on the stud and stripping the threads. I know.....I just went through this and learned the hard way.

https://honda-tech.com/forums/showthread.php?p=43420718

 

the grommets on them are from the felpro vc gasket set from advance. i used some different nuts and they are tight. checked the 1st cylinder this morning and seems like oil is still leaking through the o-rings.