My brother's prelude is akways getting soot all over the bumper and i cannot figure out why. Has anyone encountered this problem. His car is a 2000 non-SH and i was hoping that someone may have seen this before. We checked The plugs and they are not oily and but it does seem to use a lot of oil. Could this mean that we need to replace the head gasket or maybe something more simple like valve stem seals?

 

I have a 98 base and when I run it hard I get soot over the rear of my bumper and I know its from oil consumption. (for the non-rice people) when I say run it hard I mean, track time, autox or going up the curvy hills to my parents house.
Anyways I also notice that my oil consumption increased over the summer when I ran both 5w-30 and 10w-30 Mobil 1 Super Syn oil. I have since switched to Mobil conventional and have notice a reduction is oil consumption.

Cliff notes: If you have modified car expect some oil consumption. But not an extrodinary large amount.

 

Did you take it to a lab, and get it tested? I say the black soot is most likely unburnt gas, from running rich.

 

When I used to use Mobil 1, I deffinitely burned at least a quart of oil between oil changes. But after siwtching back to regular, I don't lose much oil if any.

By the way, I just posted this on another forum, but if you used Synthetic, they say that you should not go back to regular oil. The reason being synthetic is made from a completely different stuff than regular oil and when you switch back, it creates "dry spot" which obviously means "metal-to-metal".
Don't ask me about the details because I didn't fully understand what the hell my automechanics instructor was telling me that time...And, yes. I learned this after I switched back to regular oil.

 

mine does this too. As does (did) my brother's before he ran 20w-50 oil. The 98 base I test drove a while ago did it, and my old managers 2001 did it. I did notice that my oil consumption with the Tri-Syn or SuperSyn mobile 1 increased, maybe because the oil was able to slip by the rings more being more "slick"?

 

Thanks for all of the posts guy i am changing the oil today as well as the spark plugs and hopefully that will help, but still try and think of some other things to do to help.

 

My 97 went thru a quart every 1500 miles or so. That is not considered 'excessive' to manufacturers, tho you might.

Paul


[Modified by tec-9-7, 10:31 AM 2/3/2003]

 

did your back bumper get dirty?

 

No, but my tip was such that it got the soot rather than the bumper - The tip did get quite black tho - I think that's from a bit of a rich mix.

Paul

 

Amen...If you are, ahem (Insert Rice Phrase HERE VTEK'InG yO! ) Your car will be running "overly rich" to prevent detonation.

honda does this for a safety/reliability factor...it IS normal, just make sure to check the oil occasionally

D, is grateful he drives a black lude.

 

most all h22a run rich from the factory.

most of the black soot you have on your exhaust tip is from the unburnt fuel.

checking plugs will tell you nothing of oil consumption. the only way to accurately record what your losing is to check your dipstick after oil changes frequently. do this for 2 oil changes and see how much you're burning.

97-up h22a's have been known to burn upto 1-2 quarts per 3000 mile oil change.


you can change back to dino oil after using synthetic. most synthetics on the market today like mobil 1 are not pure synthetic and most are dino oil based.

also, mobil 1 synthetic burns like there is no tomorrow. used to run mobil1 a few years ago before i realized all it was good for was burning oil.

 

running rich has nothing to do with it, lol moron

let me take through a little H-series review here. the horrible rod ratio makes the cylinders turn in to egg shape in the high revs, the more you push it the more you'll burn. ask anyone that really knows them. its just the way the engine runs.

what to do to fix------------- use thicker oil and even thicker when you go to the track

 

I lose 1 - 1.5 quarts every 3500-4000K (2000 Prelude).

Regarding Mobil1 burning.....I'll believe it......when I was still using dino oil I burnt almost NO oil.

Ray - who might go back to dino oil for 1 oil change to see what happens.

 

i ran the amsoil and noticed it seemed to burn less than the mobile 1.

 

yeah my 98 SH has done this since i had it, and i switched to 20w-50 in the summer and it dont burn much at all..
but in the winter i go back to a 15w and it burns some. about a quart per 3 grand mi.

 

By the way, does anyone really know how truthful that warning about going from synthetic to conventional oil is?