I recently purchased a 88 Crx si 160k stock. It started smoking day one. Im doing a compression check soon. Its probably either rings or head gasket. Probably rings because its burning through oil. My question is what is the cheapest I could rebuild for. I am hoping I can get away with just rings and gaskets. Doing the work myself. Any thoughts? What could cause the rings to go bad at such low milage. Motor looks clean on the outside and leaks nothing. Really ticked because the car looked clean (except stupid body kit) Anything else I should look for?

 

If you wanna go cheap, buy a used motor and replace the whole thing. There's nothing cheap about doing a rebuild correctly. If you had any kind of knowledge you would've already thought this through and determined what gaskets would need to be replaced just to get to the rings and priced it out.

 

You should be able to rebuild the engine for under $400. Usually you get get an entire gasket kit. I would do gaskets, rings, barrings, timing belt, water pump and possible clutch. Just get name brand gaskets like felpro; water pump and timing belt should be honda oem.

You can also send your head to a machineshop to clean an go over it. Removing extra off the head will actually increase your compression giving you more hp, but you have to remove alot.

Replacing the clutch means you have to take out the engine and\or the transmission. Where you can do everything else with the engine still in the car.

 

Cheapest?

Compression check will let you know if you have a significant issue like a broken valve or a cracked cylinder.
If the numbers are way off, you will need to tear the engine apart to see what is going on.

Assuming your numbers are 'ok' then get a block test kit and check if your head gasket is blown.
If the gasket checks out ok, then move on to having a leak down test performed to see if your issue lies in the cylinder head or the engine block.

If it's the head then it may just be the seals that need replacing. Pretty cheap and not too hard to do.

With the mileage on the car, I would have to agree that it's probably your rings.
Better to do the testing above to make sure so you just don't throw money and parts at it.
Cost for bottom end work will vary on the condition of the motor.
If it turns out to be rings, then you need to remove the head and inspect the cylinders for how much wear they have on them.
You can get the inspection tools and do this yourself, or you can jump ahead and pull the motor out for a shop to do the work.

If nothing is terrible, then you could take the pistons out, that you can just do a driveway hone job in the cylinders.
This could be done with the remains of the motor still in the car.
You could get by with just a valve cover gasket set or just reuse), head gasket, oil pan gasket, pick up tube gasket, rear main seal, main bearings, and rings.
That is VERY unlikely since you have 160k miles.

More than likely, the cylinders have quite a bit of wear and will need a bore and then a hone.
So, add to that list having to strip everything off the block so you can take it in to a machine shop and have it bored and honed. This will require new pistons - you take them in with your old rods/pistons so they can press them on and size them with the bore.
Might as well get a full gasket kit, oil pump, water pump, timing belt, idler pulley, etc. at that point to ensure your investment is going to be healthy for a while.

 

I guess if its the bottom end I can just buy a short block. If its the head ill rebuild it. What would cause the rings to go in only 160k? Im used to rings only going out with bad a/f ratios. And im not new im just new to hondas using a crx as a daily for my 3000gt vr4. do alot of people build d16s? ill test everything just have to wait till i get a compression tester and ill update here.

 

and what is more common to happen to a d16 that burns through oil valves head gasket or rings?

 

Best case scenario its rings, get rings and head gasket kit and rent a hone and a drill or buy one and do that.

Worse case scenario get a new(used) bottom end or new motor, or entire rebuild kit from ebay with oem parts and rebuild the entire bottom end.

 

.02

Do you want to learn how to rebuild and engine? Or do you want to get the car back on the road asap?

I did my first rebuild last year and it was a gratifying process. And frustrating. Here I am a year later, and what am I doing? Shopping for a new engine. If you go the rebuild route just make sure you find a reputable machinist. And follow proper break-in procedures.

 

160K is a lot!

Rings wear down just like anything else so 160k isn't unreasonable.
It's likely that you will find areas on the cylinder walls worn smooth if it's the bottom end.

 

I re-ringed my jdm d15b vtec for $100 one time. YEah they weren't oem parts buy i needed my car back on the road ASAP and was broke.

$40 for rings(whole set)
$20 for rod bearings
$20 for metal head gasket
$20 for oil and filter

i didnt remove engine from car, took a total of 6 hours because i took my sweet as time triple checking everything. And the engine purr and ran better then ever!

 

with 160k if not abused its more than likely your valve stem seals ...they tend to get really brittle with age ...if your rings were gone you'd have a noticable drop in power and you be fouling plugs like crazy

 

The felpro head gasket set comes with valve stem seals. If you're pulling the head, you might as well drop the pan and check the bottom end, rings/pistons. I've found cracked pistons on 2 different blocks and de-glazing the cylinders can only help. Best case scenario is about $200, but even at $400 the rebuild is probably better than a used motor.

 

What happened with mine was that the oil ring went bad, no noticeable loose of power it ran great! Just would smoke sometimes and had a slight misfire at idle. Pulled plug and had oil. Best way to find out is if it only smokes at idle and when you rev it, it stops its your valve seals. If it smokes as you rev it as well its your rings.

ONLY this after you determined its not a blown head gasket
I had to change my head gasket twice due to just guessing lol
But at the end it got fixed, i should have done more test to it though before i replaced stuff

 

did you rehone? what grit bottle brush did you use?

 

Yeah i did, i went to autozone and rented the hone. Not sure of grit but made sure my cross hatch pattern was good. It was my first time doing it and wasnt hard at all to do.

 

I bought my hone tool at sears for about $30.

 

Re-ringing an engine ain't hard man. Just mainly takes time to make sure it's done right. The components needed aren't to expensive either. Just gotta look for them. My ef hatch with the d16a6 smokes. It has 180xxx miles. I'm just not going to worry about it Bc I'm looking to trade it for something else anyway.

 

It always comes back to "cheap, fast, reliable" but you can only choose two of the three.

 

I had this same issue around 165k...I was burning oil so I went with the re-ring. The main culprit was the valve stem seals. I had a local shop do most of the work because I didn't have a place to work on the car at the time and some of it was above my level anyway. I did everything and it was a little pricy but now it runs great, doesn't burn or leak any oil, and I routinely average over 40 mpg as a daily driver. Sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do but like some others have pointed out you may have to revisit the issue if you don't do it right. Good luck.

 

Haha I'll go cheap reliable. I've got a vr4 to be fast. I pulled my spark plugs and there was oil in only one cylinder. Weird I thought rings usually went out together.

 

Thinking about getting a re-ring kit from oreily's. Its 270 with a 25 dollar head gasket. Is this a good deal? How much does a used long block usually run?

 

So I switch per from Mobil 1 to Valvoline and it stopped smoking and hesitating