HCFL
1993 Acura Integra GS-R
Hi everyone.
I have a 1993 Acura Integra GS-R. It has 266,xxx km. The car has been worked hard it's whole life, but never ever ran out of oil or overheated. I bought the car two years ago and since then put 15,000 km on it. When I bought it, it burned a little bit of oil, mostly over 6000 rpm. It may have burned oil at idle or under 6000 rpm, but I could never notice it until I hit 6000 rpm, basically when vTec kicked in. It also had a leak in the head gasket, which caused an oily mess on the front of the engine.
On many occasions I asked experienced mechanics what the burning oil issue could possibly be. Most of them said either worn piston rings or valve stem seals. A lot of them said valve stem seals because it was burning oil on the higher end of the powerband.
Just recently my father traveled nearly 7000 km to help me rebuild the top end of the engine. We took the cylinder off the block and did all the valve stem seals, as well as replace the head gasket, valve cover gasket and anything else we could replace. As well we cleaned off all the valves, pistons and mating faces. We lapped the exhaust valves quite a bit and only had to lap the intake valves slightly. Valve guides seemed fine according to my father. He also said pistons seemed to be fairly tight, with very little play while he checked each piston on TDC.
We had a couple issues with locating tools and it took us nearly a week to get everything finished. We finally did, and ended up running the engine a couple times just to locate any leaks we might have from old coolant hoses. We found that oil was leaking from the drain plug and found out after that it was actually quite stripped, probably from the previous owner. Not a problem, booked an appointment with a local garage to get it drilled and tapped.
So here's the mystery. After the initial drive (my father followed behind me in another car) we found the oil leak from the head gasket has gotten worse, and also the burning oil problem has gotten worse. Now not only does it leak more on the higher end, but it leaks when I give it 100% throttle in 5th gear at 100 km/h, around 3400 rpm. That has never happened before. Compression after the rebuild was 180-180-180-180.
My father is heading home tomorrow on an early flight and we can't spend anymore time on the car.
Can anyone chime in on what these issues could possibly be?
So far we have some ideas:
- Good compression rings, bad oil rings.
- Warped head or block.
- Oil vent line routed to the wrong place, causing fumes to be burned. (Currently we have the valve cover vented upstream of the throttle body)
I have a 1993 Acura Integra GS-R. It has 266,xxx km. The car has been worked hard it's whole life, but never ever ran out of oil or overheated. I bought the car two years ago and since then put 15,000 km on it. When I bought it, it burned a little bit of oil, mostly over 6000 rpm. It may have burned oil at idle or under 6000 rpm, but I could never notice it until I hit 6000 rpm, basically when vTec kicked in. It also had a leak in the head gasket, which caused an oily mess on the front of the engine.
On many occasions I asked experienced mechanics what the burning oil issue could possibly be. Most of them said either worn piston rings or valve stem seals. A lot of them said valve stem seals because it was burning oil on the higher end of the powerband.
Just recently my father traveled nearly 7000 km to help me rebuild the top end of the engine. We took the cylinder off the block and did all the valve stem seals, as well as replace the head gasket, valve cover gasket and anything else we could replace. As well we cleaned off all the valves, pistons and mating faces. We lapped the exhaust valves quite a bit and only had to lap the intake valves slightly. Valve guides seemed fine according to my father. He also said pistons seemed to be fairly tight, with very little play while he checked each piston on TDC.
We had a couple issues with locating tools and it took us nearly a week to get everything finished. We finally did, and ended up running the engine a couple times just to locate any leaks we might have from old coolant hoses. We found that oil was leaking from the drain plug and found out after that it was actually quite stripped, probably from the previous owner. Not a problem, booked an appointment with a local garage to get it drilled and tapped.
So here's the mystery. After the initial drive (my father followed behind me in another car) we found the oil leak from the head gasket has gotten worse, and also the burning oil problem has gotten worse. Now not only does it leak more on the higher end, but it leaks when I give it 100% throttle in 5th gear at 100 km/h, around 3400 rpm. That has never happened before. Compression after the rebuild was 180-180-180-180.
My father is heading home tomorrow on an early flight and we can't spend anymore time on the car.
Can anyone chime in on what these issues could possibly be?
So far we have some ideas:
- Good compression rings, bad oil rings.
- Warped head or block.
- Oil vent line routed to the wrong place, causing fumes to be burned. (Currently we have the valve cover vented upstream of the throttle body)
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