1.5 Sohc Smokes!

I recently bought a 91 Civic DX. it has the 1.5L SOHC D16 engine. The head has been replaced with a brand new one (im told by the car salesman :/ ). Anyways, the head looks new or rebuilt. The engine is very clean condition with no oil on it. The car only has 125k miles on it. My problem is that this car smokes like it has an addiction problem hehe. I've checked the compression and it reads 180psi on all cylinders. I checked the plugs and they were worn so i replaced them. I checked the PCV valve and its working properly. The engine runs strong but sometimes it misses at high rpm. What could be the problem?

If this isnt solved, and even if it is, i hope to drop a ZC into it but for now i dont like driving around in a cloud of smoke :/ Please help.

bite the bullet and drop a ZC in.... probably cost your around $2000-2200 to do it right.... Zydyne ECU.. have the head rebuilt.... the bottom end rebuilt.... Do a clean job... You read about people doing it for less than $1200 but usually the job that was done was cheap and crappy.... I was going to drop a ZC in before I got my new job.. now im going b16a1 all the way!!!! :) well good luck on whatever you do!

what color is the smoke you getting? is all the time? or just when you first start up?

BTW its a D15(1.5L) , D16(1.6L)

It could be your piston rings, or the fact that your car is running rich. My friends 94 GSR runs fine most of the time but whenever he floors it or gets on it, black smoke pours out the exhaust.

does your car burn oil? Do you have bad gas milage? When you put your head anywhere near your exhaust, does it burn your eyes?

how is it a 1.5 liter if its a d16?

sorry crx already established that, didnt see it

Originally posted by RedRacerCivic
When you put your head anywhere near your exhaust, does it burn your eyes?

hahaha... i dont think you can get a contact high from exhaust. :bloated:

no its not the piston rings. i checked the compression and it is good. if it was the rings then the compression would be bad.
To Answer another question, it smokes pretty much randomly. sometimes i start it and it dont smoke. sometimes i run it hard and it dont smoke. sometimes it smokes when i start it and smokes when i drive it easy. It burns all kinds of oil though obviously because it smokes. i have to put like 1/2 quart in a day or more depending on how much i drive it. it gets great gas mileage though. I am still getting about 350 miles to a tank of gas when i drive the piss out of the car. I just dont know what is wrong. i've had people tell me that it may be a stuck valve because it ticks so loud. I've also had people tell me to put it on an engine computer and check if its running rich but i dont have an engine computer :(.

My car does the EXACT same thing. I just assumed it was the rings, but have never actually done a compression test. Hmmm.... I've also heard that if your valve stem seals are bad it would cause you to burn oil. As for hooking up our car's to an engine computer, good luck. I've tried that & been told that my car is too old.

ok you are prolly having oil getting into your combustion chamber and detonating with the air/fuel mix. sending blue smoke out your exhuast.

your comp test seems in the right range, but if you are needing that much oil then you prolly have a leak as well. your piston prolly ran into your valve and bent it causing the ticking.

2 things that should be replaced so you'll get rid of that problem, Rings and Valve Stem seals...

one thing you can try is just changin your oil, bump it up to 20w-50, we did that with mine and never looked back since, its cheap enough its worth a shot. Also maybe run a bottle of gumout FI cleaner in their just in case another cheap thing you can do. Last thing you might wanna check, the rotor inside the distrutor make sure its not comming loose, or make sure the rotor and cap have no corrosion on them. If a valve was bent you wouldn't get even readings outta the cyclinders. But a dead seal is possible.

For now though i'd least give the thicker oil a shot thats helped alot of peoples cars.

Above this post CZ-R mentioned valve seals,
The word I think you were lookin for is valve guides, (I`ve heard both terms before)
Valve guides are known to wear and cause the engine to burn oil,
however this wouldn`t show up on a compression test, I know
from experience, If it`s a valve guide the oil lubricating you valve train is seeping down the valvestem past the guide and letting the oil in the combustion chamber causing it to burn and give blue-ish smoke out the tail pipe.
Best bet is to do is run heavier oil like habib_88
said, no matter if it`s rings or guides it`ll help.
If the smoke your seeing is black your running way to rich.
in that case check you ecu for codes and put a multi meter to the 02 sensor to check how rich your engine is running.
.1-.4 volts lean
.5 volts excellent
.6-.9 volts rich
good luck :smoker2: