well, I just finished my ls/vtec.

81.25mm w/gsr head
everything was installed new.

Valve guide seals were relaced, but guides themselves were not.

I started the engine and let idle around 3k with occassional revs for 15-20min. I noticed alot of smoke but figured it was gunna burn out. Now I havent put any miles on the engine yet but it has about 1hr of running time so far to make sure everything else was cool.

After this I did a leakdown test and everything was good. (94-99%)
checked the pcv valve and it seamed fine. now what could be causeing my engine to burn oil??? Lots of smoke pooring out the exhaust at all rpms. Tested crankase pressure to make sure its not blowby and there was none at all.

Any Suggestions? the head was on a b20vtec but I broke a intake cam and bent all valves. Everything was replaced in the head except valve guides.

 

what did you use to assemble the engine...if you used any type of grease like redline or so its gonna take a while to stop smoking..all that stuff has to burn off

 

cylinder walls were coated with a cheap 10w-30. there really shouldnt be anything to burn out. Besides the motor has been running for around a hour total and hasnt gotten any better.

 

what color is the smoke? how bad is it smokin? and is it burnin at idle and up? if you did a leakdown test and it checked out good then i would give until break miles are completed. what is the reason for rebuild. did you possibly break a piston or something before the rebuild? because i broke a b20vtec due to piston to valve clearance and when the valve went through the piston oil seeped and sat in my exhaust and cat......... so when i strated it up after gettin a new engine it smoked for hour or so. (like fog season in central cal) then it thinned out and after a week or so it was back to normal. good luck bro.

 

sound like valve guides bro???

I been through this to many times to know this ****

if not the rings


but let's not even think that

 

bro, those rings are gonna take a long time to seat from coating the walls with 10/30. during the build you use wd40 to rotate once, then spin to make sure it spins freely. then you put the head on and pour 1 teaspoon of oil on the top of the piston. dont worry about anything til you have 1000 miles on the engine, than if its still blowing excessive smoke, start to worry that the valve guides might be the culprit.

my question is why didnt you put new guides in if you snapped a cam/bent valves? i could see not doing it if you just rebuilt it, replacing operational parts.
what piston/wall clearance is it running?
what finish was put on it?

 

go beat on it, break it in, and get the piston rings to seal. your gonna burn oil non stop with out getting the rings sealed properly

 

with those leak down numbers I shoulnt be having any kind of ring seal problems otherwise they woulda showed up.

The machine shop inspected the head and said that the guides were fine. Besides If the guides were shot the valves wouldnt be sealing up good to give me those leakdown numbers.

The smoke is a bluish black tint. At first I thought it might of been fuel but I trimmed alot out with my vafc and still same smoke.

 

is it at all posible that my cylinder head is pooling with oil and drowning the valve seals??? The ls/vtec oil line kit I am using taps right from the oil pump plug to the cylinder head. Oil pressure after warm up is around 20psi at idle and 92-95ish at high rpms.

 

you dont understand what oil does, do you? oil holds compression. thats why some race teams use oil instead of a head gasket, or to check for blow-by you run a compression check clean, then with a teaspoon dropped into the cylinder.
oil is getting past your rings, burning up. it doesnt have anything to do with blow-by, compression, etc...

 

I do understand what oil does for the most part but if I am wrong please correct me. Thats what the leakdown test was for, to see if anything was getting by the rings, which nothing was (94-99%across the board). Now if I have oil getting past the rings that would mean that my oil control rings werent doing there duty. Ive never seen a fresh bored/honed engine smoke nearly as bad as mine (ever). I would love to put 1kmiles on it but Ill probably get pulled over a billion times because of the smoke screen left behind me. Like I said, The engine has about 1hour of idleing time on it, and I highly doubt that there is still oil in there from when I coated the walls.

what do you suggest. Take her out and beat on it a bit and see what happens? 0 miles were put on the engine so far. Oh and I just inspected the valve guides(visually) and the valve had some movement in there but not enough to push open or away from the valve seal.

 

might runnin too rich. take a good look at the color. darker smoke is tuning issues.

 

ugh, I dont know. I just pulled the head and was checking out the valve guides and they seem loose but I cant tell if its supposed to be sorta loose or not.it honestly seems ok but I dont really trust my judgement.

 

is it possible that piston ring gap location could be a culprit? say for example if they where positioned on the thrust side of the piston???

 

take the exhaust (headers etc..)and intake manifold off and tell me what you see.

 

How does the motor run?

 

well, When I took off the header it was pretty oil soaked obviously. I dont know about the intake since I havent removed it yet. The motor runs good and sounds strong but I have no idea why it burns so much oil. When you look into the cylinder the pistons are covered in fresh oil. When the motor was running I even blew compressed air into the valve cover/crancase, and it built pressure so I dont think its blowby, however it did seem to smoke a little more. I dont know. Im going to pull the pistons and position the rings exactly how honda wants.

 

What kind of vtec kit did it come with (right dowel pins?)? If you are leaking you might want to check you oil and coolant if you have any mixture. Vavle guides should not be loose. Did your kit come with a head gasket? Since you did check out the header you might want to check out the intake manifold too.

 

this isnt the first lsvtec that I have put together so Im pretty sure everything is in order. Its now just a matter of finding out what is doing this. All 4 cylinders are equally as bad so Im gunna steer a little away from valve guides. Im starting to think that maybe the ring placement is incorrect. I made sure the rings were put on correctly, but I didnt get to see how the rings were positioned before installation.

 

well, I pulled out the pistons and rings and inspected them. the rings have wear marks only on certain areas. I honed out the bore with a real ruff hone and gave it a real nice cross hatch. inspected the bearings and they were kinda scratched and the moly coating looks like its wearing off. Looks kinda tight but what can I do right now at this point. I reinstalled evrything and positioned the ring end gaps accordingly to honda spec. then put the head back together and on etc. started it up and it didnt smoke too bad off the start but as soon as I went to drive it, HOLY SMOKE SCREEN. it smokes on excelleration and a little on decelleration but when I get back on it it smokes so bad I cant see behind me. So doesnt seem like its better at all. Im gunna go ahead and purchase new OEM valve seals and istall them and see if that helps at all. I have gone over everything in this engine and have no clue what is going on. Im really frusterated and have spent alot of money for this huge let down. Im still open to suggestions.

thanks
john d

 

its gotta be the valve seals. oil burns under acceleration if either the rings are bad or the seals are bad.

 

ok, valve seals are replaced with oem seals from len. SAME PROBLEM!!!!!!!!AARRRRRRGGGGHHHH. here it is. When I excellerate there is very minimal smoke, probably from whatever was left in the exhaust burning out. then when I decellerate from a full throttle run, there is practically no smoke,(when engine is at highest vacuum). then when I get back on it after a long decelleration, holy smokes I feel really sorry for the person behind me. I cant see behind me there is soo much smoke. I will try to get a vid and post it so you guys can see what I am talking about.

What can it be?????????? maybe the head is pooling with oil from too much oil pressure? maybe my ls/vtec oil feed line is too big???? Im running it right off the oil pump. I think its -6an. not too sure. but it seems like its sucking the oil in on high vacuum.

HELP ME. So far i have rebuilt the engine 2 times.

 

Did you have the block honed on a Sunnen type machine or just use a ball hone on it? Are the bores less than .ooo5 out-of-round? A leak down test gives you the condition of the 2 top rings, not the oil ring. One more item, did you make sure the oil ring expander is butted up to each other and not overlapped, that would make you loose oil ring tension.

 

:scratch head: Heres a free bump.

 

this might be a wild guess, but are you sure that the oil passage on the head was blocked off correctly? also do you have any oil leaks coming from underneath the distributor area, from the corner where that same oil passage is? good luck, i hope you find your problem!