I'm going crazy here so please help me if you can.

A few weeks back my tuner changed my b16a1 head for a b18c5 head with some b16b cams in it. The car was tuned with Neptune on obd1 and runs great.

The head has been skimmed, port matched and pressure checked.

1 day later i checked my oil and it had dropped from full to low in only 120 miles or so. The gasket was leaking very bad at the right side neer the camgears.

I went back and had to pay all over for everything because it was probably a faulty OEM headgasket with somewhat of a flat edge near the oil passage.
The tuner said he couldn't forsee that and did everything right as normally. The headguy said it was the headgasket and the Honda dealer said it was due to a badly skimmed head. Anyway i paid up once again with my last money $670 for the second time in 2 weeks. The head was checked and skimmed very light and a new OEM headgasket was orderd along with a set of ARP headstuds.

The car looked like it was perfectly healthy again only after 200 miles it started leaking again. Not as bad as befor but still. My tuner doesn't have a clue what could be done to get this fixed, i'm out of money but if i know what has gone wrong i can try and fix it. I can only think of torqing down the headstuds an extra bit.

Any ideas are welcome.

first time after 120 miles


Second headgasket after 0 miles


Second headgasket after 200 miles

 

Is the block flat or is there a nick in the block?

 

block might need to get decked, or the milling on the head is ****

 

The block was checked with a glass plate and it scratched the whole surface so i'm told it's good. The engine did not leak any oil with the original head on.

 

Could be the head.

 

Exhaust valve seals? Motor burning any oil? You're sure its not the cam seals? They could be leaking behind the cover, landing on the block (there is an area on the timing side of the block where oil can collect), then running forward and collecting where you see it. I am doing cams/seals on a motor that has oil on it just like that this week. Something to look into.

 

Also what are the arps torques to and what block are you using? Just wanna make sure you're using the correct studs. What headgasket are you using?

 

Motor isn't burning oil i looked in the mirrors when stepping on the gas i didn't notice any dark smoke neither did my mate that drove behind me notice anything weird.

Can an exhaust valve seal get the oilleakage in front of the engine? How does that happen i don't understand?

already took the cover off but that doesn't seem to be the problem. The camseal are also new by the way.

 

B18c studs with ARP spec torque + 5nm extra i was told by my tuner.
The b18c studs are a tiny bit longer then the b16a studs but that's not a problem in the cilinderhead.

It's a b16a1 block an b18c5 head and an OEM b16a1 headgasket.

 

Im not sure if its possible on the valve seals since it gets hot enough to burn the oil if they were bad enough to allow oil to just pour into the exhaust ports. You say you're not burning any anyway, so you can rule that out. Have you done a compression/leakdown test? This should be done first, but im still going to bet its the cam seals. This is exactly what a leaking exhaust cam seal looks like. You said the head was milled flat, and your block was fine before the headswap. Maybe the cam cap is distorted on that cam seal, or not torques properly, or seal isn't installed properly. Can you inspect behind the exhaust cam gear? Id be willing to bet that its wet with oil there.

 

I'll check this weekend if it's the camseal, maybe the first time was the headgasket and now it's the camseal. I only checked the camseal the first time. I hope it's that save's me allot of trouble.

 

A camseal wouldn't leak like that. Looks like the head needed to be resurfaced.

 

maybe they just did that so you can go back and pay another 600 dollars,
but i highly doubt that they would do that since he is your turner.
Looks like the head is on uneven from like a warp or uneven torquing. Did they torque it down from ARP's specs???

 

Your decks are most likely not flush (warped, nicked, etc.).

 

Camseal not installed properly.

 

My vote as well. Head was milled twice, and block was checked. Additionall the previous head on this block did not leak correct? It is easy to improperly install the cam seals.

 

Maybe they did a little bit too much milling on the head. That might be your problem, you should have taking the block and head to a machine shop to get measured again if you could have.

 

I checked the camseals this weekend but i'm not sure the problem lays there.
If i want to be sure the cambelt have to be removed to to get a better look, but as the pics show it looks pretty dry in there.
Next week my tuner is gonna look at it, i'm thinking i paid allot of money here so i'm not the one who has to fix this. Can't really work much on my car since my back is ****ed.

 

Again....its going to be hard to tell with the inner upper cover installed. You can't see behind the cover. I do agree it looks pretty dry from the pics, but its hard to tell without actually being there and examining it.

Its just odd that your original block/head combo didn't leak, and that your new head has been resurfaced twice. It doesn't appear to be a mating surface issue.
maybe torque on the headstuds?

 

my friend had a really bad oil leak like this and dumb enough part of the valve cover gasket was pinched under neath the valve cover so it didn't seal, it leaked a ton of oil. I just don't see a h.g. leaking this much..

 

If you are reusing the OEM head studs then that could be the problem too. Stock studs should not be re used like that.

Also the cam seals need to be checked.

 

I'm wondering if those head studs/nuts on them, might be bottoming out... I mean why would ARP sell B16a specific head studs if you could just use B18c studs on everything?

 

the cam seals looks good.

 

Yea. you need the Studs for whatever Block you are using.

 

b16 has a shorter deck height then a b18 thats why they both have different head studs listed by arp...