[GunNam]

Alright. I got the intake manifold off and snapped these shots. My car sat for only about 4-5 hours before I took these photos. I know that people say to check the valves for oil running down them after it sits overnight, so maybe I'll take some pictures in the morning as well.

I wonder if some of this oil is from the intake hose that goes to the valve cover nipple. I'm running the endyn catch can with open element breather. I'm using a clear hose to the intake arm. I've noticed that there is oil on the barb that goes into the intake arm, as well as some oil on the outer part of the throttle body opening. Inside walls of the TB are kinda "dusty" for lack of a better word, but not really oily. Anyway, on with the pics, there are 3 for each.

(I'll be running a leakdown this Sunday to check for rings or valve seats, this thead is to see if anything looks blatantly wrong with the seals, valves, etc...) Thanks for looking!

Cylinder 1

Cylinder 2

Cylinder 3

Cylinder 4

 

[GSR_J]

Cylinder 1,2,& 4 definately show signs of oil on the back of the valves. Cylinder 3 doesn't look too bad.

Its hard to tell from the pics but if you look at the end of the valve guides there's a dark spot which may be oil running down the valves.

Are you running a PCV valve?

 

[GunNam]

I'm not running a PCV valve. I'm running the endyn catch can in the offroad setup: open air filter element on the top of the catch can.

What designates bad? cyl 1 & 4 are like mirror images where the opposite port is clean and dirty.

Cylinder 3 was hard to get the pictures of the dish part of the valve because it's open, and the flash didn't get far enough in.

I definitely noticed the dribble of oil on some of those pics like you mentioned... I just figured the oil would be running down the valve itself, not on the exterior of that nipple where the valve goes in and out.

Is the protruding part where the valve goes in & out the guide? I don't know how far the valve guide actually goes down in the head.

 

[GSR_J]

The piece that is sticking out of the aluminium head is the valve guide.

Another way to tell if your valve seals are leaking is to watch for blue smoke coming out of the tailpipe when you first start the car in the mornings, or after the car has sat for a few hours. That's a definate tell-tale sign.

A leakdown test will pinpoint any other compression leaks, but it can't pinpoint valve seals as they do not seal the combustion chamber.

 

[GunNam]

I don't see blue smoke when I start the car first thing in the morning. I see a little bit of white smoke which goes away after my car is warmed up. I'm running forged pistons, so I assume this is acceptable.

My car does not eat coolant and my oil is not milky at all so I don't believe the white smoke means I have headgasket issues where I'm burning coolant.

For a car with probably under 10k miles on the rebuild, my oil gets dark pretty fast. After about 1000 miles, which means that I've put in about 3 quarts of oil that has gone missing, the oil is really dark brown to black already. My ex's 95 accord's oil looked like honey after 3k miles between oil changes.

 

[GSR_J]

Check your compression and do a leakdown test.

Also try running the PCV valve instead of the breather and maybe double check that the tank is draining properly.

 

[GunNam]

I'm running a leakdown on Sunday. My endyn catch can does not use the drain-back feature.

I guess it doesn't hurt to try the PCV... I have to find the rubber grommet.

 

[MichaelDelaney]

you need to have your clearances checked again or the exhaust valve seat inserts need to be redone and the valve angles lined up.

you're not sealing obviously.

chances of a burnt valve and seal go way up as time progresses the more that valve seat gets pounded.

done your lash?

 

[GunNam]

I did the lash about 5k miles ago. Trying to save money to send a head to portflow. I like to see exactly what's wrong before I spend money... which is why I'm a pain in the ass, even to myself.

I'm gonna go install my warranty tranny now... what a day.

 

[StyleTEG]

For a car with probably under 10k miles on the rebuild, my oil gets dark pretty fast. After about 1000 miles, which means that I've put in about 3 quarts of oil that has gone missing, the oil is really dark brown to black already. My ex's 95 accord's oil looked like honey after 3k miles between oil changes.

Running a forged piston my guess is the quick to brown oil is occuring due to blowby contamination at startup.

I am also definitley iffy about your catchcan setup. Why are you running with out a PCV?

I don't know if your are FI or NA, but you should have some vacuum on the crankcase at all times to prevent excess blowby.

With out a PCV you don't have vacuum at idle to near WOT situations, and with out the intake arm connected you don't have it at WOT.

If you want to run open breather, the stock holes do not have enough area to remove the pressure. You should at least tap the valve cover with two large fittings.

 

[MichaelDelaney]

this is why it's better to run with a middle of the range silicon content forged piston since the expansion upon warm up is more OR you run on the tighter side of the piston to wall clearances and ring end gaps.

clocking your gaps away from the major thrust angle side of the block also ensures less ring blow-by.

I ran a Moroso catch can set up without the dual valve cover taps as Ross showed and I ran with the PCV valve and without. With a PCV valve you definitely get less of an oil contamination issue (if the piston to wall is in the middle range and presuming that your cylinder bore isn't more than 0.0005 out of round somewhere down the length).

I was talking to an engine builder on the other boards and he rebores and hones if the ring wear is more than 0.5 thou or if the wall wear is more than 0.5 thou.

This is the level of precision that you're talking about.

Next time take a look at what 0.5 thousandth of an inch looks like to get a sense of reality here and precision that you deal with at the high quality level of builds. This is on the level of machinist tools accuracy and carefulness.

 

[GunNam]

My catch can is setup as follows:
The allen head fittings have been removed and nipples installed. These 2 holes are routed to the catch can with an open filter element on top. A hose is routed between the intake arm & valve cover nipple.

I plan on adding the 2 fittings on the exhaust side of the valve cover for added crankcase ventilation. But I plan on using open filter elements on both.

I may try the PCV on top of the catchcan and see if that changes anything... I don't even know if the AEBS has a 3/8" barb for this option, I'll have to check. I have so many extra barbs capped off back there.

I use the open filter element option on my car because I was under the impression it was better for crankcase ventilation, esp. at high RPMs.