legacycentral bbs

Alrighty... here goes. My car is eating oil, I know i've got a valve cover leak and the right main cam seal is leaking.. however, that's not the problem neither of the above leaks are any worse. I now have reason to belive that the piston rings are cooked... my symptoms are the following, please fill me in on anything else I should be looking for to confirm my fears:

1. Large amounts of slightly blue smoke coming out of the exhaust (I'm running catless so it's pretty bad). The smoke is worse after the car has been running for a few mins... it's bad when I"m idling the car down after driving... aslo if I blipp the throttle when idling it'll plume more smoke out the back.

2. Excessive fuel consumption..... I know these things are bad on gas, but this is worse then normal.

3. Oil consumption... went from full to low mark in about 3 days.

What else should I be looking at to confirm that it is in fact the piston rings dying and not something else.

Do a compression test!!!

There's really no other way to determine the condition of your rings. Anything over 150 psi is good. If it's below that, squirt some oil in the spark plug hole and do the test again. If your compression went up after the oil squirt, it's the rings for sure....

However, your car would run pretty bad if it needed rings, the low compression would make it slow as a dog.

I don't think it's the rings. I have never heard of an EJ22 ruining rings. If someone can tell me otherwise, go ahead. But I've never heard of it...

I'm guessing it's a valvetrain leak. Valve guide seals, something along those lines...

Also, your valve covers and your right rear cam seal are the two easiest oil seals on your whole engine to replace. Take some time to do those, you will leak a lot less, if at all, and then you can see how much you're burning.

Easiest test like subyluver said.....is compression test. and then squirt oil in the piston.......that should tell you whether it's the bottom end or top end of the engine that is leaking.

Thanks for the input... I've got a few other suggestions too from my local club, so I'm going to do a bunch of testing and such on the weekend. I'll post my results here.

subyluvr2212 wrote:I don't think it's the rings. I have never heard of an EJ22 ruining rings. If someone can tell me otherwise, go ahead. But I've never heard of it....

When I found my suby it was blowing blue smoke like a bastard and would barely run (I had to hold one foot on the brake and the other on the gas revving to keep it running).

When I got the motor out and took the exhaust manifolds off they were soaking wet with oil. When I took the heads off the #1 piston had a small piece missing and there was alot of oil on that side of the cylinder. The whole right side of the motor was leaking lots of oil through to the exhaust side. I atributed this to blown rings. If there is another explaination I'd like to hear it. hum.....now that I think about it I am not really sure what was wrong with the engine before I took it apart.....


Mike

Okay, well there you go

Mike, sounds to me like your car was once pushed real hard on an empty tank, or basically, leaned out to the point of having no fuel. I have an idiot friend who has a del Sol with a B20 in it, he was on the highway racing I guess, and he ran out of gas, yet he was still going at it and squirting laughing gas!!! Needless to say, after he smoked the motor, he pulled it apart and found a huge chunk missing from a piston and he has no idea where it is...

I'm not Sure About My Car But It Smokes Some i just put it in the shop i completly messed up my transmission ... but anyway I'm not sure if my car is leaking oil from the valves or rings but my gas mileage is perfect i only have to replace oil once every couple of weeks, however i had the same problem when i owned my 90 Subaru Just 3-Cyl i replaced all the valves and seals but not the rings and it ran better got more power but still smoked Alot So i would say its Both the valves and the rings so as soon as the cash comes around i'm putting her in the shop for a new set of seals everywhere