any ideas? its either a leek or its burning it right, i figure its doing both, how much is this to fix?

 

What year car?
How many miles?
City/highway/race miles?
What is your maintenance interval?
What oil brand and viscosity are you currently using?

 

What year car? 1990 accord ex
How many miles? 154000
City/highway/race miles? my friends mom has driven it for the past 8 years, prolly not maintained well at all from the looks of it, but not raced either
What is your maintenance interval? i bought it in july and have done quite a bit to it to get it up to workin order
What oil brand and viscosity are you currently using? 10w30 uh valvoline i think

 

Well some motors still don't burn a teaspoon of oil per 3K miles at that mileage, some do. A leak should be obvious. Park in a clean spot and is the a puddle there the next day? If the motor's just old and burning oil natually, you should be fine if you're having to replace less than 1 quart a month.

 

damn all i have is a gravelish dirt driveway, illput a shirt under the car or somthing, yea last time i checked the oil, there was NONE in it lol, the dip stick is like all tarnished looking, that mean anything? and the oil turns black real fast

 

my car uses about a quart a month (1991 Accord LX w/259k). on this old of a motor i use 10w-30 whatever-the-hell-is-on-sale-for-cheap-at-walmart-brand and bosch filters.

i change every 3k miles... or whenever i can get around to it. some days were good days in the engine shop @ honda I guess and other wernt . To be honest though if my car didnt burn oil at this point in its life i'd be concerned.

 

Oh, boy, this motor is probably dying. Previous owner probably rarely changed or topped-off the oil. The oil passages are probably filled with sludge and if she let it run long on low oil there is probably excessive internal wear which would account for the oil turning black and burning quickly. You can probably still get some good life out of that motor. You can do an oil system flush to clean out sludge and deposits. Best done by a pro with the proper solvent and pressure/vacuum machinery. Then keep a thicker (at least 10W30) oil in there. Probably a waste of money to use synthetic at this point... so just keep decent oil in there, top it off and change oil and filter every 3K miles and drive it until it dies. You should probably flush the cooling system and transmission and change/clean the air filter, TB and intake manifold, and put some fuel injector cleaner in your tank.

 

If its the headgasket have fun. Costs you like $400+ for a $20 gasket to be instead in the middle of the block & the head.

 

Welcome to Honda-Tech. Looks like you know some good stuff.
Head gasket is usually going to result in white smoke in exhaust, oil residue on underside of radiator cap, and moisture buildup on underside of oil fill cap.
Burning of oil is usually from piston rings, blow by, valvetrain, and ummm stuff.