Bad Rings??

[pimpngear]

Simple question yes, but I need someone with actual knowledge to answer this. With Comp. reading of 190, 192, 192, and 190 is it possible to have bad rings? 2G, twice milled head, valve seals have less than 5 Hours of actual runtime (yes...hours), smokes like a mother (drk. grey) and runs pig rich? Easy answer...... Can my stock rings on a 113 kmi. motor be bad with these compression readings?

Early apologies if someone decides to move this.

 

[awd4g63]

That seems a little high for your car. For a 2g turbo, the standard compression is around 175psi and the service limit is around 135psi. I believe the only 2gs that have that high of compression are the 2.4L, found in the Spyder.

 

[pimpngear]

I agree, but I am assuming because the valve seals have had no time to wear in, and the head was decked twice that I know of, once by me and at least once by the previous owner. This is the whole reason why I am baffled. I have eliminated almost all other possibilities and all signs point to bad rings, but the compression is astronomically high?

The main symptoms are the extreme richness and the ton of smoke dumping out the pipe. When I get on it I hit some sort of ignition lag while boosting....(like minni fuel cuts, but not really). This is the second c.a.s. I have on the car and I started from scratch again, so the wiring isn't the problem, nor the c.a.s. So I am still guessing rings...unless someone tells me this is impossible, or points me in a better direction.

 

[NOSLO2PT0]

Your 007 smoke show is probably your turbo that's shot. Pull the intake tube off and see if you can pull the shaft in and out. If there is play, then it's shot. The stuttering you are feeling is an ignition miss. Check your plugs/wires/coilpack.

 

[1fast97gsx]

considering the head was machined those are normal compression numbers ... with numbers like that I don't see how your rings can be bad. Maybe the valve seals weren't installed properly or are bad? Does it only smoke at idle? Check out the turbo for in and out shaft play.

 

[pimpngear]

The turbo was my very first suspect. Because of that, a few weeks ago I pulled the t-25 and slapped in a used 14B. There was a ton of play in the t-25, but there is none in this 14B.

I am also on my second coil pack (this one was tested at the junkyard before I bought it) and about the 5th or 6th set of plugs. With putting on a test spark plug on all wires, one at a time...they appear to be firing fine. I have this great feeling that this whole issue has something to do with the C.A.S. I put on, but I can’t figure out what it could be.

I have just about everything I need to go back into the block and swap out the rings and hone out the cylinders, but I don’t want to go through all that and find out my problem wasn't the rings.

 

[gixrman]

Did you do a leakdown test? this will determine what is leaking. With milling the head twice did you check your valve to piston clearence? did you go with a thicker head gasket?

 

[pneumo]

Here's some easy ways to check for the source of the smoke, assuming it's from oil being sucked into the exhaust somehow. If the intake valve stem seals are at fault, pull the plugs and check for wet oil on them. While they're out, get a strong flashlight and look through the plug hole at the piston tops. Normal piston tops should look black and dry. To check the exhaust side, pull the exhaust manifold off and look into the exhaust ports on the head. Look where the valves meet the valve guides on top of the port. See any wet streaks on top of the port?

Where does your turbo get it's oil supply? From the stock location on the head? Or SS line from the oil filter housing? Some turbos work best with low oil pressure, so if you are using the filter housing for oil, you may be pushing in too much pressure, and it's leaking past the shaft seals. If this is the case you might see oil in the intercooler and pipes.

Did the engine smoke this bad before you changed the stem seals? Was it worse or better?

It's also possible the rings are letting blow-by gasses through and the excess pressure is blowing oil out the valve cover breather tube and into the intake. This will show up as oil in the intercooler and pipes, too. Excess crankcase pressure will also tend to blow the dipstick out.

 

[pimpngear]

I spent the better half of yesterday trying to get hold of a air compressor to do a leak-down test, but came up empty handed. I did not check the valve-to-piston clearance so I am sorry do not have those values, also I stuck with the stock mitsu cardboard composite head gasket, so the thickness is the standard size.

I am using the stock 2g oil location with S/B's SS feed line, but I don't feel I am blowing past the seals, however this does sound convincing. For now I will assume that since the problem was present before I ripped out the t-25, and I still am pushing out the same amount of smoke with this 14B, it is not the turbo.

Before I got to taking off the exhaust manifold I noticed some oil streaks in between the runners, so i decided to turn the car on. While at idle I can see small amounts of oil seeping out between the gasket and the manifold, SO.... to me this means the oil is not from the turbo, but rather the valve seals or the rings. (unless I have an inter-cooler totally full of oil) I can only assume because of the astronomical compression numbers, it has to be the seals.

I am going to go pull the plugs right now and check the dome of the pistons, but I think it is safe to say NEVER TRUST FELPRO VALVE SEALS, or maybe I shouldn't have had mickey mouse install them (myself). More to come as soon as it stops raining outside.

 

[pneumo]

I wonder if the valvestem seals were installed properly. It is tricky to do it right. One of the mistakes I made when I first practiced rebuilding heads with a home made spring compressor was misaligning the spring retainer. The compressor wouldn't automatically hold the retainer centered and level, so the bottom edge of the retainer gouged the side of the valve. Once the engine is started the rough, damaged section of valvestem slides past the seal, damaging it and letting oil pass through the seal.

Don't be so hard on Felpro. I have their stem seals in both of my DSM's and they seal just fine.

 

[Erok]

go to autozone and try to pull codes, there are many misfire sensors and you should be puting out a random misfire or something, check your gap on your plugs and prey to the dsm gods....
other wise i dont think this has anything to do with rings, if you had bad rings your compresion would be low, this oviously is not your symptoms, also bad rings bring black smoke, not only under boost, if it was seals inturbo it should be a lighter blue to white color, do some research and dont rip out your pistons, i think you will regret it...
sorry i couldnt help much bro,
erik

 

[Kevin Jewer]

If the valve seals are bad enough to leave oil puddling in the piston dishes, that could jack up your compression numbers Pull the plugs and take a look, as suggested earlier.

 

[pimpngear]

So I pulled the head off today..... But the guy with my valve compressor tool is in the Bahamas or some sh!t. Oh well. Cylinder 1, 2, and 3's exhaust valves are all charred up and crusty like they are suppose to be, but #4 is completely coated with oil....real thick oil. The piston dome for #4 took some time to clean up also. Further more... the intake was completely coated with oil on the inside, which would make sense for a blown turbo problem (#4 cylinders closest to throttle body).

So here is the thing. While the car sat for so long and slowly rotted, I blew a turbo (Don't ask me how, because I don't know). If this turbo dumped as much oil as I think it did into the intercooler, I very well could have a ton of residual oil left in the intake system. But, wouldn't the smoke slowly dissipate the longer the car ran? Who knows?

I don't have my borrowed jack stands yet so I haven't pulled out the intercooler, but I will get to that this weekend. I sure hope I just didn't rip apart this motor for nothing. More to come later.....

 

[pneumo]

I just wanted to point out that the oil from cylinder #4 could coat the intake manifold through the EGR passage.

 

[Suparata]

Did that head ever have bent valves that were “fixed” with only replacing the bent valves?

 

[Kevin Jewer]

Along those lines, and FWIW, almost every head I have had rebuilt or my friends have had rebuilt had cracked guides. Far more common than people think.

 

[kpt4321]

Along those lines, and FWIW, almost every head I have had rebuilt or my friends have had rebuilt had cracked guides. Far more common than people think.

Did all of those heads have bent valves at some point in time, or do you know for sure that some of them never did?

I thought you were safe, so long as you were sure no valves had even been bent.