1992 honda prelude with h22a

When I back up, there is a lot of smoke being produced out of the tail pipe. Its not thick white smoke. its light smoke, but a lot of it. I did a compression test and its what it should be. Not losing coolant. not burning a lot of oil(except for the typical h22 burn)

I had a blown head gasket before on my integra and its not smoke like that.

The smell of this smoke is exhaust smell. I know my flex pipe is very lose and probably has a hole in it. and the exhaust pipes are very rusty. The catalytic converter looks very old and may be clogged(but I passed my emissions sniffer test)

it only does it a bit when im driving, and also sometimes it doesn't even happen when I back up. its like off and on. but mostly on.

no check engine light.

 

Color? Does it only happen when you are initally loading the engine or under heavy load like when you initially downshift to pass? If so, most likely valve guide seals. Also check your PCV system is not ingesting oil due to a faulty PCV valve.

 

you live in Hamilton man, i live in Kitchener, yesterday (feb 13 2014) was a cold *** morning (like -33C) and when i started up my truck it smoked like a bitch too but it was because of how cold it was. Even driving down the hi way i noticed all the cars had alot of smoke coming from their exhaust due to the cold. im thinking your exhaust just looked alot worse cuz of the cold. How is it looking today? this weekend is gonna warm up alot so that may fix your problem.

 

Yeah alot of it will be to to the cold and condensation in the system. Seals will be shrunk a bit due to the cold as well. If it continues as the weather warms up, you may want to look at valve seals, they are cheap, just a pain to remove the old ones.

The PCV is always something to look at as well, but my car was "smoking" a bit yesterday as I warmed it up, and I have my PCV removed and an external catch can.

 

i second this...my old F-series lude started to have a little bit of smoke during the winter and wasn't very noticable in the summer. It grew to be more and more visible. I replaced my valve seals and it went away. Not to bad of a fix but like he said...it's kinda of a pain of the *** getting the old crap ones off lol

 

I cant really remember if it did it this bad in the summer. But ill let you guys know in a couple of months.

I should just order the valve seals anyways just in case. Im a honda mechanic apprentice so i get them at cost.

But im also thinking of just buying a new head and swapping it in. Hopefully an importer will sell me just a head.

 

lol i've done that before too didn't feel like disassembling the head so just went and bought a fresh head for $100 bucks. But if you don't mind doing the work it's not that bad and valve seals are really cheap especially if you're getting them at cost. lol

 

Personally I find it best to just watch local classifieds or enthusiast forums. I have bought 3 full h22 engines for 300 or less each in the last few years. Then you can pull it apart and use or sell whatever you want.

It makes doing the seals 100 times easier when you can set it on a bench as well.

My best advice is to lightly heat the whole head if possible, I throw them into the big hot tank at work for 30 minutes and then yank the seals.

 

I have a guy close to me willing to sell a completely rebuilt/machined/milled head for $200. Going to get it on tuesday.


What does it do when you heat the head up? just loosens everything a bit better?

 

does it smoke when you let it decelerate in gear? (intake valves leaking)

 

it hasnt done it in a long time.

I think it was because of the winter climate.

 

I agree winter climate does take its toll on our cars.