I'm rebuilding my friend's 1990 Integra w/ stock B18a1, first time doing this. He ran it out of oil and the cams burned into the head and fuxxored it up. Surprisingly the bearings still looked good, the cylinder walls were completely smooth but within spec. I honed them with an admittely less than perfect crosshatching. The rings looked ok too but I replaced them anyway.


So I replaced:

B18b1 cylinder head
Valve seals (only thing not done by me, local shop)
Piston rings (rotated gaps to spec)
Timing belt & waterpump

So we got it back together and started it up, it smoked a lot *BLUE SMOKE* and started leaking oil from the exhaust manifold. I compression tested it before we started it, he had 60psi in 1,2,3,4 before rebuild, 120psi across the board after. I forgot to tell him to use WOT then though. :facepalm:

It is now 210psi in all cylinders, and smoking like crazy, I don't know what to do now...even if I take off the head again, how can I test to see what component is fuxxored? How am I getting horrible blow by when the rings are spaced per instructions and new valve seals?

This is my friends only car and I feel like I've let him down by telling him I could successfully rebuilt it. :sad:

 

For what its worth, we haven't broken it in at all, could this be normal for pre-break in rings??

 

Leaking exhaust out of the exhaust manifold or the head? you prob put the head gasket on backwards.

 

Well its leaking INTO the exhaust manifold FROM the head. I'm positive I didn't put the HG on backwards, is there a difference if its upside down? I looked and couldn't tell a difference. Its a new HG btw, I forgot to mention that.

I just took it out for a drive, hoping that maybe the rings just needed to wear in...I only drove 4-5 miles, varying the RPM and load and staying under 5k before it started bucking and backfiring, so I limped it home.

No appreciable difference in the quantity or color of the smoke. I smoke-screened the road most of the way there and back.

 

Ah, local shop or class shop?

From my experience... which is quite little only real experience is with small block and big block american motors.

Could have been a worn valve guide. Did you heat fit/pressed them with some interference. Did you cut the valve seats to specs with the 3 cut finish or more. Also did you cut an interference finish on the valves themselves. Oil can seep through the valve guides. Check the back sides of the exhaust valves for oil residue just to make sure the guides are good.

Other than that.. could have been the head gasket. There should be some sort of mark to tell you the up position. On the 289 I built last semester the HG had some dots to indicate the up side.

By any chance.. ASE??? LOL

 

Local shop.

I didn't check valve guides, I dropped the head off at the shop and assumed they would tell me if the guides were bad. I know, I know, assuming is stupid...

I'm sure that since its burning lots of oil and oil is leaking into the exhaust from the head, the back of the exhaust vavles are covered with oil. Also, now I'm confused as to why it started bucking and backfiring, it sounds like a misfire but I put everything back perfectly, it ran fine for a little while, it just burned a lot of smoke.

Neither my friend or I have any money, god I hate this ****. He's going to be so depressed if I can't get this working. :-(

 

Dude, just chill.. You can sort this out without money as long as you have the tools.

For the misfire part, that could be a timing problem. I would go over your timing and check to see if you put it right. Misfires and backfires can be caused by retarded timing.

For the oil problem what I meant was check the mating surfaces of the valves or the backs of the valves. If it is burning oil through somewhere else the front of the valves(flat sides) will be a little gunky with oil. For the guide problem check the back or face of the valves all the way through the stem where it goes into the guide. You are going to need valve spring compressors to open up the valves if the head is off or turn it with a wrench.

I only have experience from my autoshop class. We are ASE and Natef certified. We built engines with 0 money. The only money we needed was to replace parts, but most parts can be refurbished.

One last thing to check is your torque specs on the head itself. The head needs to be torqued onto the block at a specific sequence so that the mating surfaces of the head and block sandwich the gasket correctly. Also for the bolts themselves to stretch and create a clamping force. For your torque specs and sequences you will need to refer to a service/repair manual. You can probably google them and download them in PDF. If you don't have a torque wrench you can rent one from autozone or kragens/oreily.

 

Thanks for the advice man. I've changed a lot of head gaskets, so I know how to torque in the correct steps and sequence, so I don't think that's it.

I now have another problem...did a compression test after it warmed up, #1 tested at 190, #2 at 190, oops wait throttle needs to be open...it acts like it catches a bit, like it wants to start with no plugs in it (WTF) then 0psi on #3 and #4. Oh sh*t. So I go back and check #1 and #2. 0psi in both, every turn of the crank pops it up to 30psi, then it quickly returns to 0psi.

So 0psi in all cylinders. I took off the valve cover so I could see the cam gears and once they are lined up the crank looks to be off by 1 tooth. I guess I'll pull the head again, le sigh. I know lots of things that can cause zero compression, but nothing besides at least 4 broken valves or 4 broken rings that do that across the board, suddenly.

Ffffffffuuuuuuuu