Spitting oil out of tail pipe? ('88 Integra)

[lhspatriot3]

I recently purchased an '88 Integra w/160,000 miles for my son. I have done the usual maintenance (oil change, belts/hoses, tune-up, and even replaced the water pump and timing belt since I didn't know their history). The car runs SUPER and seems very strong however it is spitting what looks like oil (small black specks) out of the tail pipe and all over the back of the car, which is very noticeable since the car is white! There is no visible smoke while driving. I have had cars that burn oil and smoke but I have not seen anything like this before. Has anyone else had this problem? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

[knorwj]

i used to have a dodge daytona that did the same thing...

what it turned out to be was that condensation formed in the tailpipe and when mixed with the carbon deposits inside a muffler turned into a nasty black liquid that would spit exactly as you described, but not smoke or anything. It would leave small black dots on anything behind it.

I sold the car before I bothered to fix the problem but I always assumed a new muffler would have fixed it?? who knows, maybe not?

[slvrbowl5]

there should not be oil in the exhaust system(obviously)

If that thing has 160.000 on it you might want to get it checked out.(internally)
the most obvious thing is that maybe it needs new rings--u hope
b/c if it is more complicated than that you may have a headache on your hands.

[knorwj]

Originally Posted by slvrbowl5

there should not be oil in the exhaust system(obviously)

If that thing has 160.000 on it you might want to get it checked out.(internally)
the most obvious thing is that maybe it needs new rings--u hope
b/c if it is more complicated than that you may have a headache on your hands.

If it were rings the oil would more than likely be getting burned in the combustion chamber before being expelled as smoke not liquid. I don't really see any way oil could be making its way out the tailpie without being burned first, especially if the car is running as good as he says.



I'm tellin you hold your hand behind the muffler and let it spew some on your hand feel the texture of it and smell it... I bet it really isn't oil.

If it is oil and the car runs as well as you say and there is no smoke then i am stumped.

[slvrbowl5]

You are right it should get burned up during combusiton.

If it is oil though how else could it get there?
That is a tough one. It probably isn't oil though, I stand corrected.

[slvrbowl5]

although if the oil is getting through the rings on the compression stroke, it would stand to reason it would make it through in the exhaust stroke too(no combustion) , so wouldn't it be possible that some might make it's way into the exhaust system?

I mean, each chamber only fires once for every two revolutions of the crank correct. so if half of that time it weren't getting burned up?

Just a thought.

[knorwj]

good point...


Silly us how bout the obvious... is your car losing any oil? if there is enough for it to be really noticable on the back bumper then you would notice it dropping on the dipstick also...

[integralover]

my 93 ls does something pretty similar. i do not see any smoke and my car runs very well. i have 180k miles on it and i seem to lose about a quart every 3k miles. my block is alittle wet but i figured out that is was not seriously leaking from any gaskets. so i had a freind tell me to start my engine early in the morning and check to see if i can see any smoke. i can hardly see anything but after some checking and looking and watching, we came to the conclusion that my valve seals or a seal is leaking and needs to be replaced. but i have a white teq and black spots all over my back bumper. hope this helps.

[lhspatriot3]

Wow...lots of responses. Thanks!!! The car REALLY does run very well and I haven't noticed any blue smoke at all. Now as far as oil loss, yes it does lose oil but has at least one MAJOR oil leak as almost the the entire block is badly oil soaked (looks like the valve cover gasket is leaking in several spots?). When I did the timing belt job there was no apparent oil leak on the front end and there is too much oil around the entire block for it to be just the rear main seal. I plan to replace the gasket and have it steam cleaned. (Another job for another day).

My first thought originally was oil of course, but I couldn't explain the lack of blue smoke . The condensation mixed with carbon deposits is another interesting thought??? If that's it I guess a complete new system is in order $$$. It looks like it's the original exhaust system so I imagine there is a lot of crap in the pipes.


Thanks for the suggestions...I will check out the "black specks" more thoroughly and do a compression test and report back...that is if my kid ever brings the car back home !!!

[JakeDrummer]

yah i'm gonna say you have an oil leak on the block someplace. On my civic i had an oil filter (fram) blow a hole at the seam around the base of the filter one time and i had little black specs all over the back of the car.

i gotta tell this story even though its off topic... amazingly I drove the car 50 miles like this with an oil leak. My oil trail ended after 20 miles, my oil light came on at 40, I pulled over and checked the dip stick... bone dry, i had about a half a quart of castrol GTX along, dumped that in, got back in and drove another 10 miles with basicly no oil in the motor, it was 97 degrees out that day and the car had 5 people in it and the trunk was full of camping gear... still runs great and doesn't burn or use any oil these days, and i had that happen like 10,000 miles ago. another bomb proof honda story.

[crankwalk 2g]

My car does the exact same thing, as someone stated earlier its condensation mixing with carbon deposits. It could be mistaken for oil but you said the car runs good, if oil was able to make it to the muffler you would have some major engine repairs on your hands.