The long story starts with my sisters old 1997 CR-V. She hydro locked the motor, parked it and bought a 3rd gen. Anyway she went to scrap it so I bought it for the $450 she was going to get out of it. Pull head, see that one piston looks low, pull bottom end apart and sure enough it has a bent rod. Replaced the rod with one I had laying around from a b18a1 that threw a rod. Made the mistake of buying a cheep ($150) engine rebuild kit. Rebuilt the motor replacing the bent rod, new bearings, new piston rings, the whole lot. Get it together and the new head gasket is bad right off the rip. This is where the questions arise. This thing had all four cylinders with coolant in them before the rings could even seat. Pull head off, put a reputable head gasket on with new head bolts (all Fel pro) Fantastic! No more coolant in cylinders! Runs fantastic EXCEPT it's burning oil, not a little bit, a quart every 30-40 miles. What I have checked...
I have a camera that you can insert into small places like down an intake or up an exhaust manifold to see valves. Not a lick of oil. None at all. Brand new valve seals and all is well there.
Compression test:
1 155
2 85
3 125
4 99

Cyl 2 and 4 have oil visibly sitting on top of the pistons.

The question is.... Wait for it....

Are the cheep no name piston rings junk? Did the coolant screw something up?
All clearances are to spec with the Haynes manual. Yes rings are clocked correctly, in order correctly and not upside down.

Thoughts?

 

Should add it was not decked or bored, just honed. Head and block deck checked out ok.

 

Has about 150 miles on it since rebuild. I know some rings can take time, but two cylinders are reasonable compression with no oil, two are horrible with oil sitting on pistons. A quart a day is obviously not ok.

 

Could be a crack in the block somewhere. Hydro lock places HUGE amounts of pressure on the block, and the B20 sleeves are known to be weak.

 

Here is why I doubt it is a cracked sleeve.... It's no issue with coolant. Not an issue with coolant and oil mixing, the Only way for oil to enter is piston rings or valve seals. That's it. So I have ruled out valve seals. Has to be rings or the bore out of round or cracked piston ring lands. Ring lands were perfect when I put new rings on. It seems odd that 2 out of 4 cylinders would be perfect and two be far enough out of round to cause this big of an issue. So I lean toward rings. I just want to ensure that this sounds right before I order rings and another head gasket. Educated opinions please

 

to the tippy top because i'm impatient work too much to check up on here and need to order parts. Rings? that's all i'm left with right?

 

Im betting its a crack somewhere in the engine. Could be in the head.

 

hmmm i suppose possible , but i would think i would see oil on the valves, there isn't the much area outside of the valves that takes up real estate on the head as far as combustion chamber area goes.

 

Broken or improperly installed rings.

Can you identify if it is any specific cyl by checking the plugs?

 

leak down test.

 

Yes cyl 2 and 4 both are dark and have oil on them, cyl 1 and 3 have the correct tan looking burn. Besides the above mentioned low compression and visible oil on the pistons on cyl 2 and 4.

 

To use the amount of oil you are something is seriously wrong it's going to need to be torn down to be repaired anyhow.

Did clean out the ring grooves in the pistons and make sure the rings wouldn't stick? IMO it's a ring issue, only one way to tell.

 

Yea, I know it's going to be another tear down. I guess I'll order rings and a Head gasket and rip into her. Yes cleaned grooves.

 

i wouldnt mess around here. check for cylinder out of round with a bore gauge or send it to a machine shop. id also check the deck surfaces for warping. all of this is based off the idea you want to rebuild. its not a bad idea to just go to a jdm engine importer and ****** one up. around me b20's sell for between 350-600 bucks which you could come close to spending just on machine costs to run the risk of the problem persisting...