My 95 civic burns more than a quart of oil in about 100 miles... There's no leaks its burning it all people won't even drive behind me lol. I did a compression and leak down test both were fine. I replaced the PCV which was full of oil and the intake is full of oil. The weird thing is that the ridiculous amount of smoke goes away after driving it a few minutes. The longer the car sits the more it burns when I start it, so it must be pooling in the cylinder while it sits? Is it my valve stem seals? or the valves themselves? I spend more on oil than gas....

 

Sound like the valve seals are shot. If you've owned the car for awhile and it has never skip timing you can rest assured the valve guides are not damaged. What happens is while youre car is sitting, oil is seeping past the valve seals, down the guides and into combustion chambers where the valves are in an open position. You start the car and oil starts to burn all the oil that's pooled into your cylinder. You continue to drive then it stops after it has all burnt off. Swap them out, its isnt too hard.

 

Yea I already ordered them thanks! My only concern was the amount of oil... Isn't it a little excessive to just be the valve seals?

 

Pretty confident it is but we will not know 100% until you swapped them out. Oil wouldnt seep up the pistons rings when the car is off and if the rings were bad it would smoke the entire time you would be driving it. Only way oil is getting in there (pooling) would be when when the car is off is through your valve seals. Change them out then get back to your thread with definitive answers so you may help someone else in the future with the same problem.

-Travis

 

I can't agree with just this part of your statement.

I do agree oil cannot creep up without the engine turning.

My old B7 motor (now in wifes hatch) #4 rings were bad enough to push oil up into the cylinder. But it didn't smoke constantly when running. You could smell oil burning constantly but no see smoke.

However, when you engine braked for any length of time, the plumes of smoke as it burnt off the excess was horrible.

The way I identified it was the rings was to use an air compressor and push the oil past the rings (no moisture/oil in PTW clearance). Then I unhook the distributor to prevent fuel spray and crank it over 2 crank revolutions. Checked the cylinder and the PTW was full of oil. Also I had just replaced all the valve seals recently on that head.

You can get a condition the rings are pushing oil up that it is burning off enough to smell but not enough to smoke when running in light to moderate loads.

Also note, the oil seals up the rings so the compression test is still near mint to the others. I don't have a leak down tester so was unable to find it that way.

Please note, I agree that it's most likely the valve seals. Just saying you might not see smoke yet on spent rings. Should still smell it though, every time you shut off the car and get out, that smell was there.

 

How dare you not fully agree with me!! LOLOL. All jokes aside, thanks for the extra bit of information. Thats a creative was to check for leaky rings I may have to try that some day. Thanks Tom, you seem very knowledgeable and I respect your opinion.

 

Thank you for the vote of confidence. I have learned a lot from this site and the experts here. But I don't know even half of some of these guys. As well, I make blatant horrible mistakes sometimes.

LoL, lets say it wasn't fully intentional. But it was an interesting time learning. And I should share the experience as it is just one more tiny piece in a complex puzzle we call a combustion engine.



P.S. I grew up in Portland. I've been out to Bend once in my teen years. Was a gorgeous town. No clue how it has grown since. That was the 90's.

 

hmm, Tom that explanation makes me have to ask this question.
97 civic ex b20 swap. im not losing oil, and I don't smell burnt oil....UNLESS I blip the throttle a few times to take off. and even then its not a ton of smoke, just a basketball size plume of smoke. got 1k on swap and have been checking the oil religiously. any ideas? doesn't smoke on start up, or even when hitting the bangers of my people. just when I blip the throttle a few times.
not sure if its related. but im getting horrible mpgs, like 21.6 right now. but she pulls hard and doesn't miss. I THINK the mpgs might be related to timing but not sure yet.
thanks in advance!

 

What color is the basektball? Black = Fuel, Blue = Oil.

I wouldn't be supersized if it's just fuel. Blipping the throttle creates weird air/fuel mixtures as the ECU reacts to sensor inputs. 21mpg seems low as well so fuel would also make sense.

 

honestly if I had to, I would say more black than blue or white.
I am running my d16 injectors in the b20. but from what I have read online is that those injectors are fine for a stock b20. pulled plugs a day ago, they got 1k miles on them. looked good, not black and wet, also not white and dry. hoping to get it to a friends shop soon to check timing and a few other things.
sorry to thread jack dirtyundies

 

Just so you don't think I'm ignoring you.

I have nothing helpful to provide. Based on the part I quoted, I wouldn't be concerned.

Your MPG for a 2 liter is relatively close to non conservative city driving with 10% ethanol gas.

If I recall, you have this same question in tech/misc?

 

Think I mentioned it in the "What did you do to your ek today" thread...but could be wrong. Google says the CRVs get like 20-21 mpg, so figured I was dead on. but a buddy suggested I should be high twenties, due to being a WAY lighter vehicle, and non awd.
If im lucky il get timing checked soon and see if that's it.

 

Ive been here in Bend for about 4 years now. My wife is originally from here and she said there was about 10,000 people when she was growing up. Now its about 80,000 and growing. Bend still is a beautiful place to live.

 

Dsol, I had a B20 block with a GSR head before and it burned oil as well. My mechanic honda fanboy buddy told me it's normal for a mismatched swap to burn a little... I put a catch can in and topped it off once in a while never had any problems. Is your head b20 also?

 

yea I had a b20 with b16 head. was able to control oil burning for the most part on that.
this is just a regular b20 with b20 head...wanted something cheap and easily replaceable that also had torque for cheap daily fun. Decent success I think, besides crap shell, and rattle city interior, and lack of AC, and no cruise...but its cheap lol

 

Update coming on the valve seals. I got them in and everything back together but before I started them I hit a pot hole and bent my rim and popped my brand new tire. New tire is on order and then I'll let you know how the seals worked LOL

 

Seals didn't do anything... Still clouds of smoke on start up...

 

That is disappointing...

 

I'm literally out of ideas

 

Well the next "best" thing would be to replace the head-gasket. If that doesn't fix it, then it's the rings. Headgasket seems more likely as this would be oil flowing "down" as previously mentioned.

 

When I had the rocker assembly and everything off doing the valve seals I put a light in the cylinders. The pistons were BLACK with build up, but not wet (If that means anything) I thought i would be able to see wet oil considering how much I'm burning. I'll try the head gasket next. Thanks!

 

The head gasket won't cause oil burning. The ways that oil can get into the cylinders are through the piston rings, valve stems, or PCV system.

If you can find a "known good" used engine, that is the best way to solve this.

 

I was definitely thinking of buying a used engine but they usually have at LEAST 100K on them and this one only has 78K, it'd be a shame.

 

I was thinking the same thing. The oil would have to somehow get past the water jacket to get into the cylinders. The result of that would be oil in the coolant and the cylinders sucking coolant.

As such, the pistons would not be black with carbon......

 

Something is wrong with your engine using that much oil. Maybe the previous owner abused it, and it is done after 78k. Most engines with 100k will use far less oil.