SO MUCH SMOKE coming from my 94 Prelude Si. Help? Eh?

Hey everyone, just registered. Got a question for anyone who might have had this problem. I searched through the forums and saw a few similar stories so maybe someone can help from experience.

I've got a 94 Si 4WS, 170k miles, was in great working order.

So I'm driving to the casino on Monday and my check engine light goes on about 70 minutes into the 80 minute drive. The temp, etc. is okay and no smoke or anything so I ride it out until I get there and everything seems fine when I arrive. The oil had been changed 800 miles prior and the level was fine. I had just had a minor coolant hose replaced that day and the coolant level was fine. I figured the hose might not be on tight enough or something. Everything checks out fine in the parking lot when I get there. Anyways, I play some poker for about 6 hours and the car starts up fine when I come back with no check engine light and then I drive 100 miles back home with no engine light and normal operation. I figured maybe the computer still thought I had the coolant problem because the check engine light DID come on when the old hose blew out. And then when the light never came back on for the whole drive back, I considered it zero'd out and case closed.

Four days later I'm off to the casino again and I get there with no check engine light the whole way up. Then when I'm 2 minutes from my exit after driving for 80 minutes @ 70mph, the oil light comes on. Smoke starts coming out of the tailpipe, not the engine bay (white), smells deathly like oil, and then 1 minute later, at my exit, the check engine light comes on. 1 minute later it starts flashing. I probably should have pulled over and stopped right there but it was 4 AM and the gas station was about 1 mile from the exit. So I drove there at like 30 mph and it feels a little sluggish. By now there's a lot of smoke. I check the oil level when I pull in and it shows 30% full. I top it off (oil was never overfilled) and drive it 500 yards up the road to my shop. It stalls out as I'm pulling into the parking lot.

Everything from the first bit of smoke to when I got it to the gas station was about 3 minutes. 2 minutes more to the shop when I started it up again after a 15 minute break.

The exhaust is filled with oil and when it's running (even at idle) the most smoke you can imagine is coming out the tailpipe. There's no engine leaking out, really. It's pretty much all internal.

I did notice, however, that prior to this happening, for the last 15,000 miles or so, there was oil leaking out from around the head gasket area and making it's way all over the block. Pain in the ass to clean, but I wasn't losing more than 1 quart of oil every 3,000 miles, and at 170k, that seemed like par for the course, so I decided against taking the head off and/or doing a head gasket job.

I live in an apartment in the city so I'm going to have to have the shop take care of this for me. Obviously, there's a good chance I need a new motor. But they also think that there's a small possibility that the head gasket or maybe something not 100% vital may be the culprit. But that involves taking the head off to find out, which is going to take time and money. Myself and the guys at the shop have been trying to find resources and information to see if this engine might not need to be replaced, and would like to know if it is worth tearing off the head, which will probably cost me at least 200.00 - 300.00 in labor costs, on top of the cost of a new engine if need be.

Can any of you tell me what you think? All the Honda dealership service departments are pretty much blowing me off but I didn't count on them for much info anyway. I'm hoping this is the place to ask.

My driving habits were pretty demanding up until the incident. I usually did about 3,000 miles of city driving every 6 weeks (pizza delivery). Yes, a heavy workload, but I've never had any real internal problems. Car was driven like a Prelude can handle, not raced. I've owned the car since 119k, for the last 50k miles. Maintenance was performed religiously.

The only thing out of the ordinary with WHEN the incident happened is that it was virtually the first time in months that I had done any extensive highway driving (by that I mean 50+ mph for more than 20 minutes). I do a lot of driving but never on the highway for more than 10 minutes or so on the expressway. I'm guessing that something in the engine was just waiting to go, but needed to be running for long enough and to get hot enough for it to happen. Hopefully just a gasket.

Any help would be really appreciated. I just want to be 100% sure before I get a new engine, which I will if I have to.

how does your coolant look, is it green or all brown ?

from what you described it seems as if you have a head gasket break. when you first saw the oil coming down the motor you should have fixed the problem, cuz you just had pressure building, and when it exploded, it all went from the head right into the exhuast manifold.

yeha my first thought was the headgasket. but i didnt wanna rule out it being the rings

I'm sorry it's gray, not white smoke. That was a typo. I was thinking about the smoke from last week when I had the coolant leak. It's definitely oil, they confirmed it at the shop. But there could be coolant in the mix as well, who knows... this thing is putting out a LOT of smoke.

I'll call the shop to see if there's any oil in the coolant. Usually it's green, I'll see if it's brown.

As far as the leaky head gasket, there wasn't like a steady stream of oil flowing out or anything, it was just an oily residue/film accumulating about every 3000 miles. I know that Preludes do a lot of oil consumption, coupled with the high mileage, and asked around multiple places about doing the head gasket - Honda service centers and elsewhere. They all pretty much gave me the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' routine, citing that I still had over 70% oil left after 3000 miles, and doing the head gasket job might not be financially feasible for a car with maybe less than 50k left on the engine anyway.

They said that if it does fail, then I can always do the job then, but with an engine pushing 200k, you don't want to do the job just to have the engine kick the bed 10k miles later anyway.

One thing I forgot to mention was happening with the car before the incident was that every time I would start up, or put the car in gear after idling for more than 4 minutes or so (especially visible when put in reverse), I would get a small puff of smoke from the tailpipe. This smoke was white. Is this another trait of a bad head gasket? Or unrelated?

"yeha my first thought was the headgasket. but i didnt wanna rule out it being the rings"

That was my thinking, too. Which is why I want to find out if there's any 100% telltale sign of bad rings or other internals before I dump some money into a head teardown and gasket job. I read somewhere that I should drain the oil to check its content. Maybe metallic traces? I don't know, I'm going to read up some more.

I'll get back with my coolant and oil findings, thanks for the help everyone. Any more brainstorming is always appreciated.

well cold startup will normally produce a white smoke from the tailpipe, but once the car warms up it should go away.

It happens every time I put the car in gear after an idle of more than a few minutes. Just a small puff, but it has been getting bigger over the last 10k miles.

This happened 10k miles ago and you still just keep on driving it before checking anything?

wow, I don't even think I'll say what I think it might be.

did you find out about the coolant color ?

Coolant's fine, still green. I think we're going to take the head off after all. Most of the resources I'm finding are pointing to a head gasket and the engine might be worth keeping. We'll find out.