Hi guys,

I am from the netherlands. I drive a civic from 1992 with a b18c4 engine. I have a oil problem. The oil consumption is very nasty. I use castrol 5w30 fullsynt. I use 1 liter oil per 500/600 miles. The higher te revs, the more consumption. I see lots of blue smoke coming out of the exhaust. The head was cleaned. New valve seals, new head gasket etc. My short block looked good. Compression was also good. Do you guys know what the problem could be? piston rings maybe?

Here some pics before and after the cleaning.

 

anyone?

 

While I have never heard of a b18c4 engine before, I'm going to assume its a vtec b series engine, and thus, similar to my USDM b18c1.

I burn oil on the vtec transition. Every singe time, puff of blue smoke at the transition. I've heard its due to a sudden increase in blow-by causing the pcv to dump oil into the intake, but I haven't ever worried about it. I check oil every other time I fill up on gas, and run 1/2 extra qt of oil for autocross and HPDE use, and its never been enough to bother me. I suppose if you make use of vtec on a daily basis, you'll burn a heck of a lot more oil than me, as I generally drive as the owner's manual suggests, and shift at 3.2k rpm.

Could be something else, just throwing out my experience for reference.

 

yes the engine is similar to your usdm b18c1. I do use vtec on a daily basis. Lots of short distance trips. I think I have just a little to much blue smoke...

 

leakdown test will take the guessing out.

 

I have a b18c1 in my si, had the same problem before the rebuild. Did the valves, valve seals, head gasket, and piston rings. Im willing to bet it could be either of those, In my case it was in fact the rings.. Hope that helps.. Best of luck to you!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mmuller &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">leakdown test will take the guessing out.</TD></TR></TABLE>I agree. Perform this and it will help steer you in the right direction. I think that you covered all your other bases, but this will help to make sure.

 

Ok, I will go and do a leak test. Thanks for your input!

 

your piston rings are defiantly leaking. u can see a clean area around the perimeter of the piston (before u cleaned them). i would change the rings and hone the block, then put it back together and do a leak-down as you may have other problem areas also. i defiantly wouldn't go through the hassel of putting the engine back together just to leak-down test it because the clean area is a great indicator as to whats going on, although a leak-down would have told u alot about what was wrong before u tore it down.

 

Thanks for the advise.
The engine is already re-assembled at the moment...

So I probably don't even have to bore the sleeves and change the pistons? I could just re use my 81 mm pistons? I can pick up a b18c6 short block for a good price (similar to jdm ITR). <U>Can someone tell me where to look at when I go and see it?</U> It is already stripped down so I can have a good look at the parts.

I am also installing ITR cams, retainers, valves and valve springs. That in combination with the ITR pistons will make a nice daily driven setup right?

 

it all depends on the condition of the bore (measured with a mic), if it has ovaled or gotten tappered then u need to rebore. if the cylinders are straight and round then reusing your pistons will be fine (as long as there is no scratches in the bore). an easy way to see if they are tappered is use a piston ring and start at the bottom of the bore, measure the ring end gap and write it down, then move the ring up in the bore and measure it again. do this in like 4-5 places and compair the numbers. if they are all the same then your fine to rehone and rering only. if they are different then u need to do the math and figure out the difference in diameter and see if its in spec. math is: pie times diameter = circumfrance.

 

ok thanks. Next week I am going to buy an ITR short block and I will take my tuner with me to measure the cylinders