ottoman

Hey Guys,

This is starting to get rediculous...

I'm start to spend more on Oil then I do on Gas...

I add a liter of oil almost ever 1.5 tanks of gas.. (about 300miles)

Forged internals or not, this can't be normal..


Here's the deal..

I have an Evo 9..

It was running on stock internals with full mods until piston #4 let go..


So I bored the block out to 85.5mm 45* cross hatch and put in Wiseco pistons and Eagle rods, with ACL bearings...


piston to Wall is 0.003"


this was about 1.5yrs ago.. but the car was not driven much since.. few thousand miles maybe one or 2 track days.. spirited driving.. Fuel is 91 **** water here


I used to have crazy amounts of oil in the FMIC and the pipes etc, and coming out of the BOV when it vented.. so I figured it was the turbo.. so i replaced it with a GTX3076R

things got "better" but it hasn't solved the problem....


engine compression is healthy

now for the symptoms:


I have the PCV blocked (cuz of the AMS intake) and run the driver side vent to a cusco catch Tank.. and run a long hose down to the fender well VTA...


when the motor is cold.. and u drive u get fog machine out the exhaust pipe for awhile at random intervals... it seems to do it more while driving under vacuume...and on decel more then accel.

also little/no smoke at cold idle, exhaust smoke is when driving...

after it warms up.. no smoke from exhaust... hotter the better it seems (driving hard under boost etc) until u come to a light or stop...

the Smoke comes out of the catch can pretty much all the time.. puffing away

I'll come to a traffic light.. and will see smoke coming from the drivers side wheel (where the catch can hose ends)

I don't know if the lower temps now are making it more obvious or not.. but u can see it quite clearly...


after u shut off the car.. if u remove the oil cap.. u can see smoke rising out of the Valve cover like a huka pipe...

also I feel like the oil cap doesn't seal so well against the valve cover and is sweating a bit.. (that could be the pressure in the VC rather than a bad seal


I don't have any dip stick blowing out problems.. it stays where it is...

but if I remove the hose on the side vent.. there air coming out of there is pretty hard... imagine blowing as hard as u can through a mc'ds straw.. kinda like that..

is there supposed to be that much pressure in the Valve Cover?

the catch can still gathers quite a bit of oil in it fair quickly...



could it be a damaged oil control ring? or broken ring land?

valve seals shot? (they seems fine before)

or would redesigning the catch can system be enough?


relevant mods:

Fully forged internals: 85.5mm Wiseco Pistons, Eagle rods, ACL bearings etc.)
• HKS GTX3076R turbo upgrade running ~20 psi on 91pump
• HKS 272 intake and exhaust
• HKS cam gear
• HKS head gasket 1.2mm
• HKS timing belt
• ARP headstuds, ARP Mains
• AMS Intake Manifold (no CEL lights, proper setup)
• titanium retainers and springs



help would be appreciated.

tscompusa

iTrader: (31)

do a leakdown test, a compression test will not tell you enough details.

ottoman

I haven't found a tester locally..

I need to order one online and ship it half way around the globe..

only to use once?

are those harbor freight el cheapo one's any good?

tscompusa

iTrader: (31)

if you need someone to order one in the USA and send it over i can. No the harbor freight ones i wouldnt trust. use Jegs. http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS+Performan...80520/10002/-1

ottoman

Thanks for the offer,

no offense, i'm just curious if u read my post? or just immidately asked about the leak down test?


would redesigning my Catch can setup be a solution? or would u say its deffinately an internal issue?

how much blow by/ oil consumption is "normal" with a 0.003" piston to wall?

is this something u've seen before/often etc

ethan169

iTrader: (3)

It might not be likely. But have you pulled your valve cover and looked at your valve seals yet? If you have that much pressure in your valve cover that is a place to start. As if the seals are bad compression and boost will get past them. Oil will also go into the combustion chamber on vacuum of that cylinder.

Look and see if the ends of them all o have that little spring wrapped around and are not all chewed up.

ottoman

Compression tested normal... equal within 5psi on all cyl's..


and I forgot to mention.. I randomly checked one of the spark plugs for excessive fouling an such..

black with a brown tip which seems normal..

tonight..i'll check the other 3 to see if one of them is noticably different then the rest



the valve seal is different then the valve STEM seal? (aka the brass valve guide)or are they one and the same?

or is there a valve seat, valve guide and a valve seal? and they're all seperate? (sorry for the n00b question im used to having no valve train at all )

ethan169

iTrader: (3)

Sorry about that. I am talking about the valve stem seal. Not the valve seal wich i think you could also call the valve seat?

The valve seal you wont be able to see without pulling the head the stem seal you can see though. I compression tested very good on all cylinders on my car especially for its millage. 80k. Not bad but it was as good as my buddys with like 30k on it. Anyway the point is that I was burning a lot of oil as well and it turned out to be my valve STEM seals. Most likely from just straight wear or from the high lift of my S2 cams beating on them for a while.

Take a look under your valve cover. It takes 10 min to pull and is a sanity check. The gasket under there should be fine to reuse as well. If it looks cracked or anything though. Just replace it. Sounds like you have a fresh build though so not likely.

ottoman

are stem seals something a leak down test would catch?

i'm assuming no cuz the piston has to be at TDC and all the valves will be closed...

so the only way to check them is visual inspection...

can u see all the seals clearly? aren't the lifters and lobes and springs blocking the line of sight?

ethan169

iTrader: (3)

I dont think a leak down test will catch it either but I never tried one. I am pretty sure that you can see most of them without disassembling anything. Besides removing the valve cover of course. The lifters are not in the way at all as they are in the center area of the head and submerged in their little area. Not sure what its called.... The rockers might be what your thinking of but there is enough room between adjacent cylenders to see at least 2 seals on each. I think you might have a hard time with the seals on the engine front and back of the heads. So the timing belt side and the tranny side.

As long as you dont have dual valve springs you will be able to see through the spring and see the seal. You should be able to see all of this kind of on an angle.

When i changed mine i went on a hunch that they were bad. I had never seen the stem seals before and had no idea what they were supposed to look like. Once i saw them though it was clear that they were absolutely trashed. You will know once you see them.

ottoman

alright.. thanks for the tip.. i'll take a long and report back with the findings..


is it unsafe to being driving the car this way?am I harming the motor? as long as I keep the oil topped up..

ethan169

iTrader: (3)

I think it depends on what the problem actually is. Its hard to tell with yours as sometimes its intermittent and happens under different conditions.

I personally drove my car with bad valve seals for quite a while and kept topping off oil. I wasnt 100% that it was the seals though and most of the time i was troubleshooting the motor. I was just weary of digging into my head once again.

My answer would be try to fix it as soon as you can. Youll save money in the long run. Synthetic oil is not cheap, and your motor will be healthier.

ottoman

update:

I pulled the Plugs and the Valve cover tonight..

the spark plugs all look the same with none of them looking noticably worse than the rest..

from a visual observation none of the valve seals looked obviously damaged or worn.. and generally the drive train looks in very good shape and condition.. (cam wear no black oil staining the head or inner valve cover etc)

I parked my friends stock evo 7with 2.5x the mileage next to my car.. and did some side by side observations..


when comparing the air pressure coming out of the side vent nipple.. they are both very similar not much difference in it..

when I remove the oil caps on both cars.. the Stock 7 has more pressure escaping from the opening..

when I unblocked my PCV.. very small amount of air pressure escaping from it...



his oil consumption? very minimal...

when my oil cap is off u can see the oil smoke rising up and out of the motor in a fine cloud..

his none..

out the side nipple same story.. its almost like the toy locomotives u had as a kid with working smoke stack...



Also small amount of oil mist still comes out of the BOV when VTA... much much less than before I replaced the turbo... but u can see it slowly condense on the stuff thats infront of it...
(MAF coupler, IC pipe, Catch can hose etc)



so I'm left more confused now then before :S

Boltz.

iTrader: (42)

Anyway you could access a boroscope?

How about starting the car when its cold, let it run for a minute or , then pull three exhaust manifold and check for oil in the runners?

Boltz.

iTrader: (42)

Typo city, dang phone.

I just meant let it rub for a bit then pull the exhaust manifold