smoking out top of valve cover and loss of power

[buzzbomber88lx]

I need some help. My accord puffs some smoke out the top of the valve cover where there is that pipe that goes to the air cleaner. It is carb. and only smokes when you hit the gas. It also leaks oil out the front of the head and has a loss of power. I think it is a bad headgasket but you probably know more than I do. This is the deciding factor if I want to keep the car or not so please reply.

[89lxi95zx7]

it might just be valve cover gasket,i have a gasket and valve cover if you want to buy em',i'll even paint it for u,(black or blue)

[buzzbomber88lx]

I have already replaced the valve cover gasket and it fixed nothing. I also played with the timing a little and messing with the leanness and richness of the carb. but nothing worked. Any ideas?????

[BoredRec]

If it's what I think it might be, you don't want to know.

[dosh8er]

then i'll say it then... it's your head gasket.

[BoredRec]

Originally posted by dosh8er
then i'll say it then... it's your head gasket.

No, that's not it...that wouldn't cause blow-by.

[89lxi95zx7]

so :wtf: is it?

[dosh8er]

ok.. blowby is caused by rings.. if you're puffing out smoke from your exhaust.. that's it.. your rings are bad... lost compression etc...

however.. he DID say that there was oil all over the head... hrm.. lemme see... and he says oil is burning and smoking from valve cover (area)...

i'd put my money on it.

hrm... he did say something about oil from the hose that goes to the air filter... recirculation .. so it could be both..

[BoredRec]

Now this is a guess, mind you. But when I see extensive blow-by it is usually caused by the piston lands being busted. This means new pistons. But once again, this is just a guess.

[88WhiteLX-i]

Blow by is also caused by leaking valve seals. But it probably is your head gasket, do you have any anti-freeze in your oil, or oil in your anti-freeze?? If you do your oil will look like chocolate-fudgey.

[buzzbomber88lx]

The car leaks oil out the front of the head right onto the manifold but it's a slow leak. I thought at first that it was out of the valve cover gasket but it still does it even though I replaced it. I filled the car up with antifreeze about a month ago and it is all of a sudden missing. There is no antifreeze in the oil and it doesnt smoke out the exhaust. It only smokes when the accellerator is pressed(doesnt matter how hard)and it only smokes out that pipe thats leads to the air cleaner. The car idles at 1000 rpm and is in time it just has a loss of power MAJORLY. No knocks in the motor or anything. Help me out!!!!!!!!!

[Greg]

Huh?

Where is the smoke actually coming from? Do you mean the pipe that goes to the intake from the valve cover? The one that should have air from your intake coming throught the breather filter going into the valve cover?

That pipe is supposed to be sealed. Where is the smoke coming from? Is the hose to that pipe cracked and leaking?

Do you lose coolant after driving for a few days?

Even if you change the valve cover gasket, if you don't clean all the oil off your exhaust manifold, it will continue to burn off and generate smoke for a long time. If you didn't change your V/C gasket right and it still leaks oil then you will still get smoke.

You need to get some brake cleaner and a rag (and probably like a screw driver to cover the rag with and probe into some recessed areas) and clean everything below the V/C gasket and up from the exhaust manifold. Then you need to clean the exhaust manifold thoroughly and also make sure there is no oil on the outside of the engine around the manifold.

Do this when your car is cold.

Then tell us if you're losing coolant or oil and where exactly the smoke is coming from.

[buish]

i kind of have the same problem. i know i had a valve cover gasket leak which i replaced with a new gasket, but didn't seal it good enough. so there is still a slow leak down the front. i plan on pulling it off and coating the edges all around with liquid gasket soon and spraying and hosing it down with engine cleaner degreaser.

the thing is, my whole exhaust manifold and whole block is coated with oil. i checked the oil level and it reads high. my question is, what other places that can leak caused it to be all covered in oil?

i know i have somewhat of an exhaust manifold gasket leak too. manifold is missing 2 studs, and 1 stud is loose. only have 2 washers and nuts on there out of a possible 7. could that be part of the problem with oil getting everywhere?

[rocky2]

Two things you can check how healthy your engine is.
#1. Connect a vacum gauge to a full vacum line at idle should be a steady 17-21 hg needle.
#2 check cylinder compression with throttle wide open all all plugs out. should all be around 150 psi. if one is low sqirt oil into cylinder and recheck if reading increases you have worn rings,otherwise worn valves,or if all are low could have a jumped timingbelt marks

[Grant2k]

my girlfriend's car has a similar problem, too. there is no loss of power, but after long drives, her car smells like burning oil (only from the outiside) and you can see smoke coming from under the hood. i changed the valve cover gasket, and nothing, and it loses oil pretty slowly. i guess it could be the head gasket. i have to check her coolant to see what it looks like. i know there's no coolant in her oil.

[buzzbomber88lx]

I'm going to take the valve cover off today and check the valves and seats etc. And I'm going to change the head gasket. I will fill you in on the info when I'm done. Hopefully I can get my 3g running strong again they are such fine cars!

[buzzbomber88lx]

Ok I drove it today for the first time in a couple of weeks and it seems like the oil is coming out of the valve cover and the smoke is off of the manifold. But there is still some oil getting in the air that comes out of that pipe off of the valve cover and leads to the air cleaner. The oil just builds up inside the air cleaner and then drips into the carb. This causes a bad hull in my fuel and makes the car have a desperate need for air. I need to know why there is oil in that pipe. When I pulled the valve cover off last time it looked like it was closed off. Help!

[buzzbomber88lx]

I don't know what your cars run in a 1/4 mile(mph) but my car seems soooooooo slow. I can go from dead stop(I live on a dirt road so I just tested on a dirt road) and I can reach about 75mph in a 1/4 mile. I don't know if thats good or not. My brothers 84 mercury capri runs 15.3 at 91mph and he has no traction at all. My car barely burned em off on dirt in 1st gear. It did seem to pull a bit and start to sail when it was at 5grand. Tell me if that is pretty slow for a stock car or not.

[BoredRec]

Have you over revved it recently?

[buzzbomber88lx]

Today I am going to take off the catalytic converter because I think it may be causing too much backpressure through the manifold. I was told this from some people at work. Will that fix it??? I don't know but it's worth a try.

[BoredRec]

Originally posted by buzzbomber88lx
Today I am going to take off the catalytic converter because I think it may be causing too much backpressure through the manifold. I was told this from some people at work. Will that fix it??? I don't know but it's worth a try.

If that were the case you might want to stick a vacuum gauge on the engine first. If you find little or no vacuum, then that could mean a blocked exhaust, giving you that no power feeling. But hooking up the vacuum gauge is easier than taking off the cat. Might be worth a try.

[Greg]

Man, if you're getting that much shit out of your V/C pipe, you might just have blocked PCV or something...

Did you see the post that someone put on here about their air/oil separator? If you are actually getting massive amounts of oil vapor into your airbox through that pipe (I've never seen this on 3G...) You may want to go with something like that.

Also, I think some guys on here disconnect that pipe altogether and put some random filter on that pipe. Look at pictures of Mike's (A20A1) car on his site. You might get some ideas from his setup.

Sounds to me like you got some kind of engine wear, but I don't know enough about this particular problem to suggest where it may be coming from.

But first check your PCV and breather element (not air filter but the breather filter).

[mowery]

Old Accord Story No. 472: I had an '82 Accord that exhibited a similar symptom: Oil puddling in the air filter housing. It got so bad that if I didn't clean it out every few days, it would drip out of the "drain holes" in the filter housing intended for excessive moisture. The car did smoke when first started, but ran fine otherwise. (Had about 150,000 miles at the time, if memory serves.)

So one night I had just pulled off of the interstate and a guy pulled up beside me gesturing wildly. "Your car! It's on FIRE!". So I pull over and pop the hood. The oil was dripping down the back of the engine onto the exhaust, and had managed to flame up. (It was just a lil' flicker while parked, but probably much more dramatic at speed.) I leaned in, blew it out, and parked the car till I could fix the prollem.

Turned out to be broken ring lands on one of the pistons. Hence, the excessive blow-by pressure. The broken off pieces were trapped between the rings, but didn't even scratch the cylinder walls. Strange...

[BoredRec]

Originally posted by mowery


Turned out to be broken ring lands on one of the pistons. Hence, the excessive blow-by pressure. The broken off pieces were trapped between the rings, but didn't even scratch the cylinder walls. Strange...

Thank you! See? Now do you believe my first assumption?

[buzzbomber88lx]

I got a pcv valve and took me a week to put it in. (stupid place to put it):rant: So I put it in and start the car and well bejeses there was smoke everywhere!!!!!!!:huh: I get out and left the car running and noticed there was smoke coming hellaciously out of that danged pipe on the valve cover. Every time I would hit the throttle the smoke would get worse. I put my finger over the pipe and plugged it off for about 30 sec. and watery oil shot out the sides of the valve cover. When I took my finger off watery-oily smoke blew all over my hood. Dammit now I have to clean that up.:barf:
i went to Oriellys and priced a head gasket at $37 and then priced a whole head kit for $99.99. The kit comes with the head gasket, vc gasket, head bolts, valve seals(another thing i think it needs) and other crap i dont want to waste my time listening. Well I have to sell my dirt bike to buy this crap. I hope that a 3g is worth it!!!!!!!

[buzzbomber88lx]

I was looking on ebay yesterday and found the same set for 49.99 and thought that it's a hell of a buy! I'll try to find some spare change somewhere. I also found an alternator. My question is do you guys think that valve stem seals and a headgasket could fix my problem?Need feedback:bow:

[SiCReX]

maybe you have too much oil???? try checkin your oil level.

[buzzbomber88lx]

No I didnt have too much oil but I don't have enough oil now! After I change that head gasket and valve stem seals I will maybe switch to synthetic oil. I don't know.

[SiCReX]

how about..... fuck that engine buy a b20

[buzzbomber88lx]

isn't the b20 the prelude motor? If I was to swap motors I would probably get an h22 vtec out of a prelude or newer accord. But before I would swap a motor I would get a different car. i still need to know if you guys think that the valve stem seals and head gasket could fix the problem.

[buzzbomber88lx]

Everyone I know keeps telling me that it's the catallytic converter still but I swear there is water in my oil. What do you think? could that be the problem?

[buzzbomber88lx]

I started the car today(abiding the smoke) and had my brother hold his hand over the exhaust while i revved the motor to test the cat. There was pressure when revving and then it sucked air back into the exhaust. Is this a problem?

[A20A1]

exhaust waves travel in pulses thru the exhaust (expansion and compression waves)... so it seems that why you'd get some suction from the exhaust. But maybe the lack of throttle vs engine speed caused air to get sucked back in thru the exhaust, because you said you were reving the motor... i suppose the suction happened right after you let off the throttle?

[Justin86]

Hey I'm having the same problem right now but worse. Everyone else is right that it is excesive blow by. If you do a compression check it will help to isolate where the problem is. I did and found out that my #2 piston only had 52 PSI in it. It should be around 150 PSI. This will help you get closer to the problem and then a solution, so do it.

[buzzbomber88lx]

when I took the motor out and apart it did indeed have piston lands that crumbled in my fingers. the rings were indeed ok but the piston lands were shit. Also the main and crank bearings were showing a little wear. I should take some pics of the pistons and show you how bad the lands were.