1996 RS Smoking

[prop7459]

I drive an 1996 rs and the damm thing is smoking greyish smoke. I only mods I did to it is a short ram exhaust and no cat. I'm new to this dsm family and like to know why is my car smoking. I told several people about my situations and I hearing different answers. One guy told me its not the head gasket but it can be the pistons rings and willing to done the job for $900. Thats steep for my wallet right now, but when I thought about it, my car started to smoke a day or two after my exhaust was put on and the cat was removed. Another person told me it could be something in the valve train. I though to myself that these problems usually happen with cars with high milage or been driven too hard. The common idea to me is the car is burnig oil somewhere in the engine. I check oil level and usually needs a pint of oil when driving hard for a week or two.But when driving normally the car need about a half of a pint of oil. The car has 84,000 miles on it now and was bought with 77,522 miles and I am the second owner.Need help fast.

 

[NyteDSM96]

are u noticin a big difference in performance (mostly in acceleration)? how much smoke is comin out? i use to have a problem similar to that when i bought it. and it smoked a lot when the car was parked. lemme know if ur symptoms are the same, cuz then i would be able to help u.

 

[prop7459]

The car start to smoke when the engine is warm and when I'm still. When driving the smoke is gone. The other day I talk to buddy of mine he said it is the cat that was remove that is causing this problem causing the o2 sensor to gone crazy. I'm so lost about this situation and would like to fix it. The car run strong and accelerate pretty fast, last week I raced my friend LS Integra(1993) and put it stomping on it from a stop. I no performace lost but smoke is the problem.

 

[RAVAGER576]

Our cars have a smoking addiction. You may have always had just never noticed too much since the cat may have been filtering the smoke fairly well. If its smoking at idle then its mostly likely a valve seal ... thats what Im told about mine. Other than that I replaced my valve cover gasket and also my spark plug tube seals and noticed that the smoke volume dropped alot. You may check for some leaks, especially on the back of the block since this is the most difficult to observe. The reason it stops when you start driving is it is blowing off or through so its no longer visible ... it probably still stinks for the people behind you ...

Good luck and dont go paying someone that much money until you try the smaller stuff ... thats too expensive especially if its for nothing ...

Peace

 

[prop7459]

So if it is the valve seals how much will it cost me to fix it? I look up vavle and there are pretty cheap about $1.60 for each. Will labor kill me with the price?

 

[RAVAGER576]

Unsure on labor cost. Im going to attempt this myself as soon as I enlist my dads help. He says hes done plenty of them before. You might just ask ... Im sure its alot cheaper than the piston seals would be. If your concerned about the pistons though you can always do a compression test first and find out if your weak anywhere. Im sure you wouldnt have to pay much for that to be done, although again Im unsure.

Also, have you changed oil type recently? How do you drive your car? Easy or aggressively? Do you turn sharp? Because when I first started autocrossing I was dumping oil like mad into my short ram intake because of extreme right turns. It would basically throw all the oil up against the drivers side of the engine and out the small nipple on the valve cover straight into intake. This may be another source of your oil loss since it appears to be a touch and go thing for people.

Just a few things to check!

Let us know what you find out it is if you do.

 

[NyteDSM96]

ravager: ur one crazy ass mother*****. thats what i call an extreme turn if all the oil is goin everywhere.


prop: sounds like an oil leak from the engine. ravagers explaination makes sense. however, my problem had the exact same symptoms as yours, and it turned out to be an oil leak sumwhere from the engine, i dont really remember from where, but i did suffer great power loss. like a 25%. it costed around $100 to fix, but lucky for me my car was under warranty