To rebuild or to buy already rebuilt...

So. I seem to be doomed in having the worst of luck with whatever car i buy. At least the last one i got is relatively cheap to fix and stupendous on gas.

Meet my 93 civic dx. Good 'ole 1.5 liter SOHC 16v. Easy to work on and parts are cheap. And it burns oil.

Story is, i got rid of my POS Z34 for something cheaper and better on gas. I found this civic for 1600 bucks. I've only needed to put a valve cover gasket, a wheelstud, and a control arm bushing in. $50 bucks worth of parts. Other than that the car has been a jewel..until today. I was driving and i noticed the oil light coming on under heavy braking. Kinda strange i thought to myself since i changed the oil ~1500 miles ago when i did the valve cover gasket. So I add 2 quarts (!) of oil to it and check my dipstick. Bad news, the oil on the dipstick is BLACK. Like... you would think it was a diesel motor or something.

So shit. I guess im burning oil. Funny thing is, i've never seen a puff of blue smoke come out of that car ever, be it cold startup, heavy acceleration, anything, but that oil is going somewhere and it's not on the ground.

Anyway, i decided that i'm gonna fix the motor, by either straight up replacing it with a rebuilt longblock ($$$) or rebuilding the motor myself (:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: ). Now don't think im you're average backyard mechanic, i've actaully replaced a few lexus motors, and those things are a cu_t to do. I don't have any worries aobut being able to take the motor out and ptting it back in, removing the head and pistons and stuff, but im not sure aobut what to do with the block. Should i send it out to get machined, along with the head? or should I just rering the bitch, change the valve seals and hope for the best? I'm also thinking of buying the same motor from a junkyard, rebuilding IT, and when all is said and done, swapping it in.

I dunno, what would you guys do?

from experience changing a fwd motor is like the bitch of all jobs. you have to ask your self a lot of questions on this and answer them in a realistic fashion:
1: do i feel lucky
2: DO I HAVE THE TIME? < big one
3: do i have another mode of transit (tearing your car apart will take time an machinists need time too), and you need to work, eat, ect.
4: financials: do i have the money for all of this? which is more cost effective?
5: do i have a place where i can go about this?
6: do i have a way to document this? (EVERY STAGE< EVERY ANGLE OF THE MOTOR SHOULD BE A PHOTO OP) you will thank your self when you have spent 5 rolls of pictures so you are not scratching your head 2 months from now when you are putting everything back together.
7: am i confident... and compitent mechanically to do this?
i dont mean to lecture you on this. you said you have done this before, so i think you know what you are getting yourself into. but on the off chance that someone who hasnt changed a motor wants to see what is written here can see what you are getting your self into. my first motor swap was a 1.8 out of a 90 plymouth laser. and i did it all wrong.

Steel, read your sig, then drive that pig till it dies.

If for some reason you have developed a careing relationship with a 1.5l Honda then forget about rebuilding it, just get a Jap import 1.5 and drop it in.
Its an easy weekends work, they are not the most complex of cars, and a good lowish millage motor will be a lot cheaper than rebuilding the one you have.

Or, you could get a Rotary.

car runs fine, gets good mileage and does everything its supposed to.

Check the oil ever tank of gas and drive it for the next 200K miles. You might have to change out sparkplugs more often due to oil/carbon fouling.

Plugs and oil are cheap. Seems like a no brainer to me.

I'm more than capable of rebuilding an engine, but I won't rebuild an engine to save myself $1 worth of oil every 1000 miles. I'm just not that anal.

RUN 'ER TO THE GROUND.

Honestly, don't rebuild unless something's wrong. you can get low mileage engines for under $2000, anything up to 1.8L hondas. if it does what its supposed to dont bother.

YEah, i understand where you guys are coming from in terms of the 'run it into the ground' standpoint. I'm just pissed that i got another car that's fucked up in some way. I mean, i don't mind having to fix 'normal' type things, brakes, suspension shit, outside engine stuff, wahtever. But goddamn internal engine problems?!?!

Anyway, i did a compression test and all the cylinders are pushng 210 dry. Then i noticed the PCV tube was collapsed. And the PCV valve gummed up to hell. So now im thinking either the oil control rings are not doing their job, or my valve seals are goin.

ah fuckit. If i do anything i might swap out a junkyard motor (a known good junkyard motor...who's PCV didnt blow out all the seals). I know i can get one for 250-300 bucks.

Moppie: you are the devil. I need to curb my rotary appetite until i finsih my degree, get a REAL job, and can buy a 95 rx-7. oohohoohh....

if your PCV hose is callapsed, that could be your oil burning issue.

There are "problems", and there are PROBLEMS when it comes to engines. IF it is just a worn engine getting a little long in the tooth, then I personally don't think of it as a "problem". Its just normal.

Keep in mind, ALL engines burn oil. You may not notice a measurable amount, but its unavoidable with the design. So with that in mind, at what point is it "too much" to YOU. Because that is the only limiting factor in such things. Your own mental issues.

Everyone has their own preferences to this of course....I have literally had engines that consumed a quart of oil every 200 miles....and I still put off pulling the motor apart for 10K miles. You could call it me being lazy....but the motor ran absolutely perfectly, even at that oil consumption rate. So I was willing to put it off until it was more friendly of a time, where I could have everything ready etc for the engine repair.

Yeah well, a quart every 750 miles is a little over my comfy zone, unless it's a rotamota. And it shouldn't be 'long in the tooth' so to speak at 100k miles. Not for a SOHC honda motor. MY buddies old accord got over 300k before it finally started eating oil then lost compression.

Anyway, i installed a new PCV and hose, and its still belching out lots of blue when your bounce it off the rev limiter. I doubt its residual shit still burning off. I know what you guys' suggestion's gonna be "Dont bounce it off the rev limiter!" yeah yeah. Not the point. Meh. Im gonna cross my fingers and hope maybe the oil rings are just gummed up a bit, and a little MMO or ATF in the cylinders overnight will free them up and magically make my problems go away. A longshot, i know, but i'm going to exhaust all avenues before taking the big plunge.

Oh yeah, don't forget; massachusetts emissions arent exactly lienient either. If i fail emissions im screwed.

I don't know about your state in particular, but around here anyway, you could be belching oil smoke so thick you couldn't see for a block, and as long as it passes the sniff test, its all good (I'm exagerating a tiny bit....but not much!)

But either way, they don't usually bounce the motor off the rev limiter while doing the sniff test :licka:

and its still belching out lots of blue when your bounce it off the rev limiter.


Its good to know your driving it like it was designed to be driven :D
You might find with a bit of abuse it will actualy wear in properly, and use less oil. Its not uncommon for these cars to never be driven hard enough to really settle the rings in. A bit of abuse might be just what it needs.

well, it WAS a city car in its past life, explaining the 100k miles in 13 years of service. But now the car's done a 180 and has been turned into a 95% highway 4% country road 1% city car. So im sure this constant high RPM's is quite a shell shock to it. If it had feelings. Which it does. I know.

So yeah. I have yet to try the ATF trick, but i'll get around to it. And maybe run some of that restore crap through it. who knows maybe it'll help.

this might sound a little stupid... but when my old laser was smoken and leaken, and this was bad... like a quart every 30 miles. i found this thing called "Engine restore"(< 4 cyl version) that comes in a can, i mixed that with my 5 quart jug of valvaline high milage, (i also changed my oil and added the stuff right away) and by the time i was through with the 5 qt jug it stopped leaking completely. after that i kept using the stuff. give it a try, it helped my car emensely. but give it time to work.