Off topic - Honda help

[Mikel]

Hello,
I bought a 91 Honda Civic hatchback to save some money in my daily 100 mile commute (42MPG vs my XJ's 20). The car has been burning industrial amounts of oil (2 qts / 100 miles). After breaking a valve, I put in a lower mileage head from a junkyard, but made no difference in oil consumption. I plugged the PCV hose to see if it was sucking oil out of the crankcase into the intake, but no difference. I am wondering if I have a cracked piston ring somewhere. I checked compression and all four cylinders were at 175-195 psi. Here is a picture of the plugs.



It is obviously running very rich (plugs only have 300 miles) and #1 on the left looks pretty oily. I am thinking of pulling the head again, and pulling the pistons out to re-ring (the ridge on the cyls looked pretty minor).

What do you think?

Thanks,

Mikel

[chipotle]

Yuck...not sure myself, but I can relate with an 88 CRX. It't pretty funny with the roof line lower than my Jeeps hood line.

Douglas

[OBX-AUTOMOTIVE]

HEY!!!!!!!!!!... MIKEL..HOLY COW THAT'S A LOT OF OIL!. ..YEP! JUST PULL THE PISTONS AND RERING IT AND CHECK THE ROD BEARINGS AND JOURNALS WHILE YOUR AT IT!...HELL! IT'S ONLY 4 CYLs [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Chris Barry]

what about the valve guide seals? have you checked those to see if they are letting oil past the valve guides? If you pull the head, look for oil in the intake ports.

[osceola]

compression at 175 to 195 psi? thats like 12 to 1 .is that correct?I dont think its your rings with compression like. that make me think you have afunky guage.do another test but this time squirt some 30 weight oil into the cylinders first if the compression goes up ,the rings are toast.if there is blue smoke at start up guides are worn.personally I wouldnt put a nickel into a japanese car they are throw away items as far as im concerned .parts are expensive and the nuts and bolts seem to be made of pot metal.I have gone down that road with them and wont do it again.

[IslanderOffRoad]

I'd reccomend not messing with it until you get a price quote for a used Japanese engine. Regulations over there require engines to be replaced around 40k, and all those engines get shipped here. Look in your local recycler or pennysaver type ad to find them, they go pretty cheap and have alot less wear than most junkyard engines.

[Little Red Wagon]

The engines aren't that expensive for one from a wrecking yard... at least here in the southwest.
here's a list of what you can expect in price for a new one, and it's a whole lot less hassle than tearing your engine apart to try to fix it...
The prices range from about $450 to about $550 for a good engine with a 30k warranty.

[ April 05, 2006, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: Little Red Wagon ]

[Spectre]

I'd look at doing a leakdown test first to determine where the problem is. Valve stem seals are cheap and easy to do. Much of anything else, I'd just ditch the engine and get a used JDM or junkyard engine, it's just not worth it.