Has my engine pooped itself?

[adrianciaff]

I have done a few searches and found a few bits and peices of answers to a similar or same problem, however, not everyone touched on every aspect and a few things are still vague to me.

A bit of history:
model: 1997 LE NA8 (manual)
has done only 127000 kms
Was bought about 2-3 months ago off a lady onwer who treated it worse than you could possibly imagine. however it was regularly serviced as far as warranty went, she owned it for about 11 years and it had a major service at 100,000. She barely drove it.
There was basically no oil in it when we got it

I serviced it when i bought it (full oil, filter and spark plug change) and recently just changed the oil and filter with fully synthetic 5-30 mobil 1 oil and hit it with a can of suburu upper engine cleaner.

The problem:

The last oil change was done about 2 weeks ago. It has been running perfectly fine untill last weekend. I noticed an extreemly unusually large cloud of smoke come out of my exhaust for approximately 5 minutes untill the car warmed up. At first i thought it may have been because it was a fairly cool morning and the car was cold. My evauluation has now shifted as it has been doing this on every cold startup regardless of the temperature outside.

The smoke is thick, whiteish/greyish, and the car has now begun to chew oil like crazy. On the way home today (50 minute drive) i noticed the white smoke on startup, AND the lifters were ticking as if it were low on oil. When i got home it was dry, i put what was left of my 1l bottle of top up oil in (there was 500ml left) and after waiting for 2 hours the dip stick was still not reading anything.

The biggest thing that scares me is i checked the oil last week and it was fine, (4-5 days after my service) car was running well.

I havent noticed any loss in performance,

thats about all i can think of at the moment,
my thoughts are valve stems or piston rings.
Any other suggestions and input would be appreciated,
Thanks guys

[manga_blue]

Rings, valve guides and/or seals, oil leak across head gasket, failed PCV valve or something else wrong with the crankcase ventilation plumbing? Not all of these are major problems.

You haven't mentioned any oil leaks. Does that mean there are none that you can find?

I'd get it to a workshop for a cylinder compression test, maybe a vacuum check too.

[adrianciaff]

There are no profound oil leaks, there was an oil leak on the cam cover which i replaced the gasket and that is all good now, underneath the sump is a bit dirty but there is no noticeable leaking. I will check the pcv valve tomorrow and try putting a thicker oil in. Being my daily driver i am going to assume that doing this will make the problem ALOT better and potentially stop it from blowing smoke however it wont fix the problem.

I dont really have the money to spend on getting a mechanic to fix valve guides and seals and piston rings and that if worse came to worst i would just buy a new engine and put it in myself. But i would try to avoid that aswell..

thanks for the input

[Mr Morlock]

sounds nasty-I agree with Manga go direct to a mechanic for a comp check and diagnosis. The engine may well have been seriously compromised by running low or out of oil. Low Kms do not mean much if no maintenance.

[red devil]

iv heard similar stories after people using the subie head cleaner! yes it clears all the carbon n sh*t, but it turns the motor into a oil burner especially if it hasnt been used since new

good luck bud

[NitroDann]

Why 5w30, to start with, thats a stupid oil for a 130,000km old 15 year old car.

Sounds like a rings issue to me, but its hard to diagnose over the phone.

And no theres no issue with the subi cleaner.

Dann

[Guran]

Why 5w30, to start with, thats a stupid oil for a 130,000km old 15 year old car.

Could you justify that statement please? I've been using 5W30 Castrol Edge Sport for the last few oil changes - works fine for me. Although it does benefit from some Nulon Lifter Free. MX-5 Mania put Elf Competition GT 15W50 in when I had the major service done there - I'd use it too if I could find it locally.

[NitroDann]

30 weight is an extremely thin oil for a car that has big oil galleries, no vvt to run, and 130,000 km worth of clearances.

The thing is that when new, and if it had something like a VVT or V tech system that requires very fast oil transfer, that would be great. But an early BP has no Valvetrain systems like Vtech that need fast oil pumping to open or turn a valve, and by now after 130,000 of abuse, it wont have the 2 thou of clearances between beariings and the crank/rods, and so needs a thicker oil to keep pressure up in those areas.

A 15w50 is fine, as it is a 50 weight when hot, and so suits an older engine.

Dann

[aviper4u]

not sure why your engine is blowing smoke , mech visit is prolly in order.
though i must agree with other posts about the oil, there is no need to add a super thin oil on such a motor i prolly wouldnt recomend a 50 weight oil though i would recommend a 40 weight as it is DOHC. the first number is the cold start value and like cars dríven for descent trips engine is mostly hot, so the second number is more important.

[Kobsy]

Just have to say, this is a good example of how to ask a problem question! So much info to use.

But anyway when you try to work it out. My first initial thought was it sounds like seized oil rings on your pistons. There is no oil leaks outside the engine, your losing oil, the oil has to be going somewhere. And based on the symptoms I'm thinking piston rings. Engine still runs fine because the compression rings are still doing their job. Just the oil rings are probably seized.

Easy way to put it, when the engine is cold in the mornings, oil is passing up past the pistons because the oil rings aren't doing their job properly. As everything warms up, it expands, restricting the passage the oil has found into the combustion chamber. And no more smoke, or if any your not noticing it?

Anyway I would probably just check the cheaper options first anyway like thicker oil, PCV, double check for oil leaks.

One theory anyway haha, hope it all goes well for you!

[Guran]

Thanks for the advice on oil weights! I was going to apologize for the thread hijack but it has actually raised some options for the OP, so maybe it wasn't a hijack afterall.

[project.r.racing]

I'll second Dan's thoughts. I use Penrite 15W60 on my 160,000km old BP engine. Cos 15W30 burns and blows out the exhaust pipe at higher rpms. I went 60 just cos I wanted max protection at high rpms. Lots of oil comapnies sell 15W40s or 15W50s also.

15w30 = use 300ml per 1000km
15w60 = use 100ml per 1000km

Last engine which was replaced at 265,000km, was totally stuffed with valve stem seals and oil rings worn excessively. Using 40W70, it still blew blew smoke for 90sec on start up and anything above 4500rpm. I neglected that engine and brought cheap s@#t 20W50 and poured it in every 10,000km between 140,000-190,000km. By 200,000km it was stuffed and thicker oil wasn't gonna help, only prolonged the end result.

Current engine I have had for 30,000km (installed at 130,000km), using 15W60 and swapping oil and filter every 5000km. Engine still as good as 30,000km ago.

re subi cleaner -
it probably just cleaned out all the crystallized gunk that was sealing up the 2 thou of wear.

[Dweezle]

On the old NA engine that was in the silver car, i used the subi cleaner.
Tons of white smoke after the cleaner,
But i also then had on every startup, thick white clouds of smoke until it warmed up afterwards.
Never did this before the cleaner.
I assume that there was carbon sealing any leaks and the cleaner removed that.
New engine fixed that issue.

[Kobsy]

Dweezle, that sounds very interesting. Now I'm really interested on how this cleaner works, and how it can cause problems like this.

Does anyone else know more info about it?

Time to go do some research!

[NitroDann]

It cant. Honestly.

The clearances we are talking about arent anywhere near a combustion chamber, so therefore cant have any affect on oil usgae or smoke.

Yes you might pump some oil into the exhaust, and it make smoke for a while but nothing bad can happen to the engine.

People need to do an oil change after using it though, because it destroys your oil.
So dont do an oil change, use subi cleaner, run it for 10,000 on an oil thats useless and then wonder why your engine is acting up.

Dann