Hatchback blue smoke woes

[Creativeness]

Hello all. I've had my civic for many moons and was hoping to hear some advice on this issue I'm having. First a bit about my car:

Bone stock aside from welded headers and an aftermarket muffler. 132,000 miles. Usually get 220 miles to the tank since I hit the 120k mark.

About 350 miles ago I started to get random rough driving on the freeway when accelerating hard to pass other cars, usually after deceleration and hitting the gas a huge plume of blue smoke would come out. Drove at a steady rpm until I got home and no smoke. Next day I drove to work and back and only a small bit of smoke at start up then it was fine again. Tried it yesterday with varying throttle and sure enough a plume of smoke came after a hard acceleration and letting off the throttle.

Checked my oil level and started the trip meter. Drove 200 miles and it needed about a quarter of a quart. Checked my compression and it reads at 180psi across all 4 cylinders, put oil in the cylinder and the compression went up 2-3psi in all cylinders. The spark plugs however have a white dusty covering. Car doesn't overheat or hesitate to start.

Could this be my rings or the valve stems?

 

[5SpeedEJ6]

Not the most knowledgeable member here but the blue smoke usually means that you are burning oil. Could be piston rings are worn, and a numerous other things. I'm sure someone with more experience can expand on this.

 

[HeX]

Was there any remnants of oil on those plugs? That would indicate your spark plug cylinder seals are leaking.

Outside of that, your engine must be in need of maintenance to only be getting 220 miles out of a tankful. You should be getting over 300.

 

[Creativeness]

Yeah... that's why I'm asking.

Those are how the plugs looked coming out of the head, no alteration and they are 200 miles old.

 

[Diana Nam]

it looks like your running a bit hot. 3 of them are fine and have normal wear

 

[HeX]

You must be leaking oil somewhere in that block. I would think worn piston rings would show low compression. Im not sure what else to consider, but there are more knowledgeable members than I.

Assuming for a moment that your smoke might not be blue, are you leaking oil anyehere around the block? Inspect inside the distributor if theres any oil around it or the cap.

it looks like your running a bit hot. 3 of them are fine and have normal wear

Are you using 87 octane fuel? When was the last time you changed the distributor cap, rotor and spark plug wires?

 

[xxBLOOD88SHOTxx]

If your valve stems were bad it would smoke on startup, if they were so bad that they were leaking constantly then it would constantly smoke and you would be eating tons of oil. You should be getting much better MPG than that too. I think a decent tune up is in order.

 

[dancam]

Thats pretty good compression. Stupid question but i have to ask: did you do it properly? Hot engine, All spark plugs out, injectors unplugged, throttle all the way open? Many people get wrong readings by doing it wrong. I have not tested compression on many engines but usually adding oil would increase pressure by 60-120psi. I had a car that would loose 1L of oil every 200miles out the valve stem seals. It would shoot oil out the tailpipe at startup. In the winter with high idle and thick oil it would shoot oil 5ft out the tailpipe. You loosing any out there at startup?
If that compression is accurate i doubt its the rings, but no increase with added oil seems suspect of a faulty reading to me. (Im no expert though). Any external leaks?


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[xxBLOOD88SHOTxx]

The compression check is more about seeing a difference from cylinder to cylinder rather than looking at actual numbers. If adding the oil does nothing, then it isn't the rings.

 

[Creativeness]

Did a leak down test and I'm at 15-20% loss through all my cylinders. Could hear air leaking on the intake side of the head, none through the exhaust, no bubbles in radiator, no noise from the throttle body and no noise through the dip stick hole.

Did the compression test correctly.

I notice more air seepage from the port behind the 2 and 3 valves on the head.

 

[Diana Nam]

Did a leak down test and I'm at 15-20% loss through all my cylinders. Could hear air leaking on the intake side of the head, none through the exhaust, no bubbles in radiator, no noise from the throttle body and no noise through the dip stick hole.

Did the compression test correctly.

I notice more air seepage from the port behind the 2 and 3 valves on the head.

its possible that your valves might be at a slightly open position or they're bent, the extra air seeping through causes the mixture to be lean(lean mixtures burns hotter. but from one of your plugs it looks like your running way too lean in one of the cylinder.

 

[Creativeness]

What cylinder? Each plug looks the same with the white tip and chocolate brown crown from what I could tell.

This is where the air is coming from on the leak down test.

 

[Diana Nam]

cylinder 3 is what you have circled also if that one plug came from cylinder 3 will make it a lot more sense. also you should check the intake manifold gasket could be a reason why you have air seeping through. no air should be seeping through with good valves and intake manifold gasket.

that white discoloration is a sign saying your motor is running really lean. but not lean enough to trigger a lean condition code.

 

[Creativeness]

The plugs are in order from left to right. I can't tell any difference. Going to try valve seats since they are cheap. Allet my rings might be bad since air came out of that port while checking every cylinder. I have tomorrow off I might just take it to the dealer.

Car has been serviced by honda for 8 years. Never told me it was lean and that's how my plugs always have looked since the headers were put in.

 

[HeX]

Dealership mechanics guarantee are usually not a good options as theyre usually nothing but parts changers and not great mechsnics. Save yourself money and visit a real mechanic shop, that is unless you know for sure that your local Honda has a "real" mechanic.

 

[dancam]

The plug by the tip of your thumb is slightly different but i doubt it means anything significant.
I think you should make sure you dont have an external leak onto your exhaust or something. Even leakdown test leaking into the intake from all cylinders could be carbon or gunk buildup on those valves. Is your pcv system clean? Is the inside of the manifold clean? Use seafoam intake cleaner ever?
Your plugs seem to indicate your not running rich or burning oil to me. What did the old ones look like before you put these in?


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[Diana Nam]

The plugs are in order from left to right. I can't tell any difference. Going to try valve seats since they are cheap. Allet my rings might be bad since air came out of that port while checking every cylinder. I have tomorrow off I might just take it to the dealer.

Car has been serviced by honda for 8 years. Never told me it was lean and that's how my plugs always have looked since the headers were put in.

that "port" as you call it doesn't actually connect to combustion chamber. its suppose to be completely sealed off.

 

[Restotech]

Dealership mechanics guarantee are usually not a good options as theyre usually nothing but parts changers and not great mechsnics. Save yourself money and visit a real mechanic shop, that is unless you know for sure that your local Honda has a "real" mechanic.

You don't like Honda dealers, do you?

 

[Creativeness]

So what does that mean Diana? The plugs looked this way ever since I had the exhaust put in at around 80k miles with the blue oil smoke coming out of the exhaust now I'm trying to track down what the cause is for that.

Every 3500 miles the car received:
-Oil change with mobile 1 5w-30 synthetic
-Mobil 1 oil filter
-Valve check
-pcv valve replacement
-new antifreeze every 7000 miles
-seafoam added to oil every change
-seafoam injector cleaner system ran at 1500rpm for 15min every oil change.

Small amount of oil in the intake manifold but I'm pretty sure the times I've cleaned the throttle body that's always been there.

Checked the pcv system for the hell of it and found nothing clogged or gummed, also checked the iacv to make sure it wasn't carbon build up and it was still clean as well.

I own 2 1998 civics and it's odd that this one with less miles is having issues. The other one I've had and used for about 95k miles now and nothing has gone wrong lol

 

[HeX]

You don't like Honda dealers, do you?

Facts, testimonials and history have taught me to know better against most dealership mechanics. Its a crap shoot to find a good one, but at their rates its just not worth the risk.