ideas on oil consumption issues???

[RON98]

do the easy stuff first.

start with the PVC. :smile:

but seriously 3 quarts is a LOT of oil to go through for a pvc issue.

My money is probably on the rings also. Not cause they where worn out but rather the cylinder wall did not take to the rings.

does your car smoke while running??

 

[sca037]

do the easy stuff first.

start with the PVC. :smile:

but seriously 3 quarts is a LOT of oil to go through for a pvc issue.

My money is probably on the rings also. Not cause they where worn out but rather the cylinder wall did not take to the rings.

does your car smoke while running??

I'll only add that your cats are probably on their way out, trying to cope with all the oil thrown at them..........
If I were a betting man (and I'm not ;^) i would agree it's the piston rings.....best case scenario is that they haven't scuffed in properly, but more likely it's an installation problem.

Best of luck,
Brian

 

[4AU4LIFE]

well I went home last night and fired it up and looked very closely at the exhaust coming out of the pipes. I didn't see anything.
I did the test on the PCV valve but couldn't really hear the 'clicking' sound the manual was refering to over the sound of the engine.
I let it idle for a few minutes and went back out and revved the engine and checked the exhaust again and still nothing unusual.
I did notice that the vacuum line coming from the TB to the valve cover actually looked like it was very thick tubing and not like the other vacuum lines on the car. It has string made into the tube if you understand what I'm talking about. Almost like the original line was bad and this was a tube that just happened to be laying around so it got used in it's place.
The PCV valve would 'snap' down into the grommet in the cover but then it seemed rather loose sitting in the grommet. I think I'm going to replace the grommet, PCV valve and hose.
Maybe if I get the car out and drive it around it might start the smoking again.

 

[OLDMNSX]

If the engine has NO leaks then the oil is going out the exhaust, it has nowhere else to go. If you want to see just how much, get someone else to drive the car and you follow behind from initial start up to a rapid acceleration and deceleration. I think that you will become a believer when you see the blue smoke. \

The water vapor that you are seeing is normal. H2O is a byproduct of any internal combustion engine. This is the reason that you don't start an engine that is in storage and let it run only a short time.

See what you get with the leakdown test. Now something that the old dragracers did to get rings to reseat, if that is the problem, was introduce BON AMY powder cleanser into the intake to SCUFF the cylinder walls and try to get the rings to reseat. Now this is drastic measures, but so is your high oil consumption. Back pressure when going down a steep hill will seat rings also.

Unless there are NO valve stem seals installed I don't think that you can get an engine to burn that much oil just from worn valve seals. Again get the differential compression test done and go from there.

Brad

 

[ffffanman]

You are wasting your time with this PCV valve and its loose fitting grommet!
Get someone to follow you or you follow someone driving your rig.
You'll see the smoke!
Then get the two tests done.
Get on it!
Trev

 

[4AU4LIFE]

I have an idea of what I'm going to do.
I'm going to fill the oil up to the top mark on the stick. I will then mark down the mileage of the car and drive it on a more regular basis so it gets some work. I'll monitor the level on the stick and take notes to get a better gauge of the exact amount of consumption.
That way, there is no guessing about the amount and the mileage that it takes to be done.

 

[nsxotic911]

I have an idea of what I'm going to do.
I'm going to fill the oil up to the top mark on the stick. I will then mark down the mileage of the car and drive it on a more regular basis so it gets some work. I'll monitor the level on the stick and take notes to get a better gauge of the exact amount of consumption.
That way, there is no guessing about the amount and the mileage that it takes to be done.

Does it really matter? You're burnign a lot of oil is the bottom line and I woudl find out asap why before increasing the damage.

Just mo, from a lot of hard and $$ lessons!! "If it's broke, fix it!" :tongue:

 

[davidf]

One more small thing on the PCV. With the car running, pull it out of the grommet. It should have a very strong vacumn on it, enough to almost kill your engine. If so the PCV is fine.

 

[4AU4LIFE]

One more small thing on the PCV. With the car running, pull it out of the grommet. It should have a very strong vacumn on it, enough to almost kill your engine. If so the PCV is fine.

It does have a tremendous amount of vacuum on it. I did that the other day when I pulled it out.

 

[ffffanman]

Unsubscribing!

 

[DocL]

Don't drive the car.

 

[RON98]

come down to la. ill take a look free of charge :biggrin:

run compression and leak down. give us the number and we'll be able to give you a better answer.

i think motors with built engine and forged pistons are a complete different story over stock.

Also built motors use more oil because of the bigger clearance that is need.

personally my mr2 motor is going to be running stupid end ring gap.. but on the other hand im doing high boost + meth + nos and it will use more oil then stock.

anyways. if its a built motor, its a complete different story from what the engine should be stock.

instead of getting overwhelmed, start easy stuff first, btw if you feel a vacuum, your PVC is fine.

pull the plugs, do a compression and leak down. you can do leak down yourself. go on ebay and get leak down testers and you'll also need a compressor.

first step is always the hardest to take. Get some facts. right now we are just all guessing and wasting thread space.

 

[RON98]

I have an idea of what I'm going to do.
I'm going to fill the oil up to the top mark on the stick. I will then mark down the mileage of the car and drive it on a more regular basis so it gets some work. I'll monitor the level on the stick and take notes to get a better gauge of the exact amount of consumption.
That way, there is no guessing about the amount and the mileage that it takes to be done.

why bother wasting your time? you already know your motor uses oil and LOTS of it.

now what you need to know is where its losing it from and why. you should run the two test right now before you possibly do more damange confirming what you already know.

 

[drew]

That way, there is no guessing about the amount and the mileage that it takes to be done.

Your actual solution response will not differ based on the amount of oil consumed, once it reaches the tipping point of "too much".

Currently, I believe you are trying measure the time/value cost of a solution with the cost of the symptom (excessive oil consumption) and just feed it oil on a consistent basis. In effect, you are trying to define "too much" based on the financial costs and little else.

One or two quarts a added a week would cost you $150/year, where as it will cost you $1K just to replace the valve seals (might fix the problem) and $5K to repair the engine. Which means you can operate for >10 years and within that time frame there is more of a chance of collision and/or selling of the vehicle.

So yes you are correct: There is no inexpensive solution. And if the oil consumption is predictable, buying a new case of oil for the trunk every quarter is a viable economic solution.

You have gotten your answers and our job is done.

Good Luck

Drew
/The E39 M5's used to burn up a quart every 500 miles right off the dealer showroom and that just fine with most owners.

 

[nsxotic911]

Your actual solution response will not differ based on the amount of oil consumed, once it reaches the tipping point of "too much".

Currently, I believe you are trying measure the time/value cost of a solution with the cost of the symptom (excessive oil consumption) and just feed it oil on a consistent basis. In effect, you are trying to define "too much" based on the financial costs and little else.

One or two quarts a added a week would cost your $150/year, where as it will cost you $1K just to replace the valve seals (might fix the problem) and $5K to repair the engine. Which means you can operate for >10 years and within that time frame there is more of a chance of collision and/or selling of the vehicle.

So yes you are correct: There is no inexpensive solution. And if the oil consumption is predictable, buying a new case of oil for the trunk every quarter is a viable economic solution.

You have gotten your answers and our job is done.

Good Luck

Drew
/The E39 M5's used to burn up a quart every 500 miles right off the dealer showroom and that just fine with most owners.

That assumes that the true source of the problem is something benign and will not result in catastrophic damage in the near-mid term future, and it's not going to get worse.

I highly doubt that will be the case.

 

[4AU4LIFE]

during the inital engine brake in, you took it way to easy on the motor and glazed the cylinder honing before the rings had a chance to seal and mate.

Some engine builders sware by WOT the engine as soon as it is started and putting it under extreme load.

The theory is the compression gasses will force the rings against the cylinder walls and this will quickly mate the rings to the cylinder BEFORE the cross hatching is glazed over.

If you ran the car according to factory procedure of running it real easy, that could have cause your rings to not seal right because the factory piston ring material is soft and not as hard as the stuff that comes with the aftermarket rings so the AM rings does not seal like the softer factory rings will and require more force to brake in

Im braking in my new engine with the beat it to death method. You can google it and find great results.

it makes complete sense.

What i would do is verifiy that the engine first does not have any compression issues or a scored cylinder wall. If all checks out and just bad ring sealing ( more importantly its across the board). I would go out and WOT the crap out of it and hope the extra force on the engine seals it.

driving conservative could have been your down fall here.

also take my advice with a grain of salt. do it at your own risks. I do not know the condition of your motor and it is up to you to verify the WOT worthiness of it.

good luck with it.

so me driving the car easy is a death sentence for the motor That is pathetic.
I'm done with this. I'm taking the car to get a test done, find out the results and if comes back I need a rebuild AGAIN, I'm done with it.
There is absolutely no reason why I should have to spend ~$9k for a rebuild 6yrs and ~26k miles ago only to have to do it all over again when I drive the car very conservatively. No excuse for that.

 

[4AU4LIFE]

I'm supposed to be getting the leakdown test done this weekend.
One other thing I thought of that is odd. The car NEVER smoked at all for years after I had it rebuilt. It only started doing that once I let it set for ~4 mos without running it at all.
Would sitting for so long hurt the engine?
While it was sitting, I decided to replace the plugs, cover gaskets, plug gaskets and upon reinstallation is when the smoking occured.

 

[nsxotic911]

I'm supposed to be getting the leakdown test done this weekend.
One other thing I thought of that is odd. The car NEVER smoked at all for years after I had it rebuilt. It only started doing that once I let it set for ~4 mos without running it at all.
Would sitting for so long hurt the engine?
While it was sitting, I decided to replace the plugs, cover gaskets, plug gaskets and upon reinstallation is when the smoking occured.

Interesting..... I would think that the seals not sealing would have symptoms fairly soon after driving it. How many miles did you drive it before this happened?

I could see the seals replaced not sealing properly or getting in the engin or combustion chamber and causing problems...

 

[4AU4LIFE]

Interesting..... I would think that the seals not sealing would have symptoms fairly soon after driving it. How many miles did you drive it before this happened?

I could see the seals replaced not sealing properly or getting in the engin or combustion chamber and causing problems...

I have not driven the car for ~4 mos or there so. Once I finally put the cam covers back on and fired it up and got the smoke out of the exhaust, I haven't pulled it out of the garage. I have run the engine for a while a couple of different times but that's it.
I even went to the local dealer and gave him part number for head set that was used in the rebuild just to make sure that valve seals were included and they agreed that they were.
*sigh*, the searching continues...
I'm crossing my fingers that it is something easy and cheap to fix but I have a sinking feeling that it isn't.

 

[4AU4LIFE]

UPDATE
And no, I didn't get the leakdown test done yet.....reason is below.
Since I knew that I was needing a new 02 sensor because the CEL was on and throwing the 42 code, I followed the advice of others given on another thread about 02sensors and bought a Denso brand 4 wire lead one yesterday.
Well, I finally get around to doing the install job tonight. I jacked the car up and put jack stands under it. I crawled under it and noticed how easy the sensor were to get to. However, I wasn't sure which one I was wanting to replace. The code said the rear sensor was bad. HOWEVER it seems like the cylinder that had the worse looking spark plug came out of the front back of cylinders. Hmmm, now I'm really confused.
I remembered that all of the bluish smoke that came out of the car was out of the drivers side exhaust pipe. Now the question came up, was that pipe for the front or rear bank cylinders?? I tried following the inlet pipes to the OEM muffler but once the go in, I have no idea how they are arranged and come out. So, I was baffled.
So, since the code was telling me the rear sensor was bad I decided that I would change that one and see if that would make the light go out. I pull out the trusty service manual and find the appropriate area to find out which was the rear sensor. Was it in fact for the rear back???? I would soon see.
I started reading it and then something sprang into my mind I wonder something....hmmmmmm. I just changed the gasket and goodies on the came covers. When I was removing the rear cover I had to unplug the 02 sensor.....:biggrin: Could it be that I forgot to plug it back in upon reinstallation of the covers????? So I lowered the car, open the hatch and felt down to where the sensor was and guess what......the plug was just dangling there. I had forgot to plug it back in.
So, I fish around and found the plug and snapped it back and was dancing around my garage being so excited that I might now have to have bought the 02 sensor after all and now I can take it back.
I pulled the clock fuse to reset the ECU and fired it up. No CEL this time, which wasn't really a shock to me. YIPEEEE E!!!!:biggrin:
I let the engine run for ~15 mins until the temp gauge was in the normal operating temperature range and then crossed my fingers. I pressed on the springy of the throttle body till I reached 4k RPM and saw no smoke !!!! I did this a few more times with the same results.
I then shut the engine off and watched the left side exhaust pipe for smoke as it was doing that previously.....nothing.....no smoke at all.
So, my question is this. Could it be possible that since the ECU was detecting a bad/missing 02 sensor that it was compensating for it in someway and causing the smoke issue?
Even if it didn't, I'm a happy camper now. I feel like I have cleared a major hurdle with getting the CEL to go off and now I will do another compression check and maybe a leakdown, depending on what the compression says.
Thanks to those that have given advice, tips and PMs. That are truly appreicated and I am very grateful.
When and if I do get rid of this car, I hope that I'll be allowed to stick around here and maybe help others with their issues if I can.

 

[Daedalus]

That's definitely good news, but unfortunately it doesn't answer for the oil consumption. Without the O2 plugged in, yes the car will run rich, and you will get more black fouling from unburnt fuel, but this won't cause blue smoke or oil consumption.

 

[4AU4LIFE]

Well, after letting the car sit dormant for so long that the battery died, I got a new battery and started the car up the other day. I fired right up with no problems.
I let it idle for quite a while. Once it was up to normal operating temps, I gave it some gas to watch the exhaust. Sure enough, with each push of the pedal, I would get a slight puff of blue smoke:frown:, that looks like a certain sign of the valve stem seals needing replacement.
So my question is this. Since I will be due for a TB/WP replacement soon, due to time and not mileage, would it hurt the engine to drive the car around a little bit till later this year when I will be getting the work done? I don't imagine it would be more than maybe a thousand miles, and probably not even that much. I would of course have to constantly monitor the oil level but other than that I wasn't sure of any possible long term damage beyond what I 'know' needs fixing.