im still trying to figure out what caused such a major oil loss before it blew up

it went from top dot to oil light on in 120 mile drive

I know the cam seals were leaking but not that much I watched them closely.

before I took the head off there was no smoke at all while decelerating

once the head was on every single time I decelerate I saw a lot of smoke.

I had some no name(possibly autozone) valve seals and brand new supertech valves


after the shop did the bronze inserts it started smoking very bad on deceleration

valves were cleaned up by the shop bad ones replaced
bronze inserte doneon exhaust guides only
and new supertech valve seals were put in

I drilled them on these inserts but they swore up and down that inserts are just as good as bronze guides. when I look inside the guide its go some dimples or grooves in it. not completely flat like oem guides


sorry for posting so many questions I just have a feeling that part of the problem was those damn inserts leaking oil past them.
my oil pan was leaking much worse than cam seals when first built but still didn't loose a quart of oil in 120 miles

 

When you are decelerating there is high vacuum in the intake manifold and cylinder. This means the oil can come from the top end or the bottom. But in your case the head work sounds suspicious. I have never heard of anyone lining the guides in any Honda engine, usually it's the domestics that have much bigger guides. I guess it's time to tear the motor down for a detailed investigation. If you refresh a head on a tired or poor sealing bottom end it can introduce oil burning issues but to lose that much in 120 miles is a major problem.

 

If you do them 1 at a time, you can blow compessed air thru spark plug hole to keep them from falling. then you can compress the springs and dis assemble. then you can see what you find.

 

my machine shop says they refuse to use liners in Honda engines because the valve stems are too small, they only do liners in large stem American engines.

its possible the guides are the problem, its also possible the seals are the problem. it's also possible that they didn't cut the valve seats after doing the liners, causing valves to not line up properly which will immediately cause heavy wear on guides and stretch the valve seals.

did they cut the valve seats after installing the liners to make sure everything lined up perfectly? did they cut the intake side valve seats too to line up with the old worn guides?

also as stated above, it could also be rings.

 

My goodness man.. Bad juju.. Time for another machine shop entirely.

 

Defintetly look into a different machine shop . For the amount of oil being burned I don't think it was your head so much as your bottom end. I've seen some horror stories when companies install guides incorrectly but for the amount of oil you burned it sounds like your rings should be your main suspect. Take it apart inspect your cylinder walls and have your cylinder head inspected by someone quaalified and properly equiped machine shop.

 

yea that's what they were trying to tell me that with bronze guides I had to recut the valves
which they did anyway with inserts but I can see streaks of wear on valve stems from the guides...

the guy tried to use " the angle of the dangle" when explaining to me about cutting valves lol I ignored that warning... stupid me
it is a well known shop tho
where im at I can count them by fingers otherwise its an hour and a half drive to get to speedfactory and other machine shops...kinda expensive with 20mpg car

 

I understand but quality is always going to be expensive. Had you gone to let's say speedfactory they would NOT have allowed you to do things half way and even though customers get upset or even think they are being ripped off the reality is that the old saying "do it right the first time and don't have to do it a second time" holds its weight in gold. Customers will always be upset about "high prices" but atleast your motor will be strong and live long. I say bite the bullet ship it out to speed factory or any other reputable shop that has this type of experience in working on high performance builds and get it built right so you don't have to worry about anything like this happening again.quick example to replace oem cast guides(all 16) we charge $190 how much did you save doing liners and even then did you really save in the end. Not trying to lecture you here just giving you advice I got 18 years ago.

 

Yea well the shop was recommended by someone that brings all his engines for machine work there mostly hondas. So i thought it couldnt be that bad... but i guess theyre in the closet too and probabky only work with stock engines.

 

Does the inside look like the inside of this Kline guide liner? See pic below.

There's nothing "wrong" with the grooves. It's designed for oil retention.

Couple thoughts here

(1) It's not the guides job to prevent oil from entering the port. That is the valve seals' job.

(2) How's your leak down? Could the high oil consumption be from poor ring-seal. I ask this because it doesn't make sense that the amount of oil consumed was from deccelerating. I am assuming your driving in part-throttle much, much longer than decelerating in-gear.

(3) Valve seals for Honda 5.5mm stems, especially the viton ones, are very sensitive to misalignment. If not centered on the stem, they don't seal well.

(4) My machine shop told me they use liners for rebuilds, but they do not like liners for small stems because the liner don't stay secured.

 

probably a variation of that sleeve ill take some pictures if I remember right they were not even grooves more like dimples but I have to check again.


and I made a machined tool to install the valve seals done them about 10 times already with no issues. and smoke started right after the head was worked on. never once ive seen smoke in the 10000 miles that I had it after build.

did compression test about 5 times and leakdown test twice one after build and one right before I took it apart it was always consistent and I had no scuffing at all on the cylinder walls.

unless those supertech Viton seals are junk I couldn't find any definitive reviews on them just like most stuff about equal number of people say they are bad and then other say they used them for years with no problems

 

The Supertech viton seals are sensitive to misalignment. Had two cases where we had to re-install them because they were not installed perfectly aligned.

Need to install the seals with the valves in the guides, so that alignment can be checked by looking down on the stem to see if there's even contact around the stem.

 

I have a valve with a machined sleeve over it that's the tool I was talking about lol its kinda diy but it makes it easy to install

well I just bought a b20 long block to put in the del sol so im parting this whole thing out so hopefully gather enough to do that 2 liter that I wanted and do it properly.
it was a ****** good and expensive lesson.

 

so if they are misaligned do they smoke again right from initial startup?

ive replaced the valveseals in 2 of my friends car recently with the supertech's. one of them stopped getting oil in the cylinder. the other one still has wet pistons. both cars have good and even compression/leakdown results.


raver, im glad you are sticking with this and keeping the honda thing going. my boost motor is a 2 liter gsr and even with the wastegate spring out its pretty damn quick and responsive

 

I would but im beyond broke. I did not expect this **** and im selling off to pay back whatever I put on the credit. a lot of it was cash but I had to use credit card for my last purchases I didn't expect all this to happen one after another

 

Yeah, just smokes.

 

The guy that did machine work on my engine told me i was gonna be seeing smoke because of the bronze guides i had him install for me. I forget why but he explained it to me something about the bronze and the heat idk. Im not sure if thats true cuz i havent even finished my build. But he hates bronze guides

 

I have super tech valve seals in my engine and it smokes. I'm guessing the machine shop that installed them didn't put them in right.