my friend has an '88 prelude si that he's offered to me. the problem is he parked it because the spark plugs (all 4 of them) were covered in oil. it was still running before he parked it. i began tearing into it and im almost to the point of lifting the head off. there is no evidence of any radiator fluid leakage and there was never any white smoke out the exhaust. thats why im thinking this may not be a headgasket issue. could it possibly be a valve seal issue? i dont think it would be piston rings either. we were too eager and dumb and never did a compression test before we started tearing it apart. but if it were rings, then how could all 4 plugs be drenched in oil? any help would be appreciated. thanks.

 

If the rings were bad and there was enough blowby to drench the plugs, there should be a significant amount of oil consumption going on there.

 

yeah, this is true. i'll have to finish taking it apart and see what i can see. i may just give it to one of my friends and help them fix it.

this may be a ridiculas q, but are there any other motors that will drop into this car? like an accord vtec or sumpin? im jus thinkin of options.

 

yeah, it's just the spark plug housing seals... they go for about $6 each from Honda...

 

If the the spark plug tubes are filled with oil, then just change the spark plug tube seals...
when you take off the valve cover, they are the 4 O-rings that seal the spark plug tube...
You can do it yourself...

 

If there's oil on the TOP of the plug, then you have a seal issue. If there's oil on the BOTTOM of the plug (firing side) then you have problems. That's an oil control ring gone bad... er... all four I guess. Run the compression test and see what it says.

 

You could drop a 90-91 Prelude engine, either B21A1 or B20A5, they will fit to the stock motor mounts, whereas other engines will need different ones...