So a friend of mine has built a high compression KA for his s13. Had the block bored and honed, used fresh sohc pistons, brand new rings, mls head gasket, all new gaskets and seals in the motor. This thing is absolutely annihilating oil. He filled the motor up with oil, drove the car a total of 15 miles, and when he stopped, the oilpan was almost dry. The motor has great compression in all cylinders, the pcv system was disconnected for a bit thinking it was the issue, it wasnt apparently. And there is oil pooling in the lower intake manifold, how it got there, we have no idea. Anybody here have any ideas or thoughts about what could be the problem?

Piston rings? how did he break the engine in?

If it's the ring he has to take it apart all over again and buy new rings then break it in the proper way.

Are you sure he is burning it? To burn more than a quart of oil in 15 minutes of driving is insane. The first thing I would do is try to figure out where the oil leak in the intake manifold is coming from. I wouldn't be surprised if that fixed his problem.

Jeff, if the piston rings were bad, the motor wouldn't have good compression and oil wouldn't get into the intake manifold it would just burn and go out the tail pipe.

Redneck, Pretty sure its burning, its only coming out the tail pipe as HUGE clouds of blue-whiute smoke. And the wierd part about the leak in the intake manifold is there are NO oil passages in the intake manifold. I dont know how it could be getting there.

white smoke = coolant/condensation
blue smoke = burning oil
black smoke = running rich as fuck!

pistons rings don't hold compression they only scrape the oil off the cylinder walls so it won't go into the combustion chamber. correct me if I'm wrong though.

ONE of the rings are for scraping the oil off. the other 2 rings are for compression. If the rings are bad enough for that much blow by, the motor wouldnt have that good of compression nor would it have uniform compression on all cylinders.

ahh makes sense. what about the head gasket? it could be pooring oil into the clyinder.

why did he rebuild it? just because or did he have a blown head gasket.

But again: did he break the engine in?

if the headgasket was leaking oil into the cylinders the motor wouldn't have even compression across the cylinders. He rebuilt the motor becaue his old motor developed a nasty rod knock. as far as the break in, he is still in it. it has smoked since he first started it up from the first time.

Valves, rings, and HG are the only way into the chamber...

unless its hitchin a ride with the intake charge which means PCV/valve cover vent/block vent

eliminate everything that connects the intake to the block/head other than the intake ports. No connection at all, PCV valve or not.

unless its valve seals. mayb whoever did the head work messed up

we replaced the valve seals after it started smokin (that was the second thing we thought it was after the rings/ hg) and its still burnin. removed the pcv line from the intake and it still burned oil. if it was just burning oil by itself i would be with you guys that it would be rings or hg, but i cant figure out how itd get oil in the intake manifold.

as for the valve cover vent or block vent, i cant see enough oil travelling through those to drain the motor of oil in 15 miles. but i will have him double check.

when he did that did he get oversized piston rings and pistons as well?

yup

A non functioning pcv can send crankcase pressures real high, drive oil into the intake, and cause oil burning. dunno about that much.

I need to ask, was each cylinder machined to match a piston? I would figure that the machinist did this, but some people may just machine to a spec, but that won't necessarily result in a good seal.

are you blowing the dipstick out?

Is the PCV valve fresh?

well the machine shop wouldnt bore the cylinders til he brought the pistons in, so I would assume they did. Not blowing the dipstick out. Pcv is fresh and it still burned oil like mad when the pcv system was disconnected from the intake manifold.

it shouldnt be too hard to figure this out, and btw theres 3 oil scraper rings, with 2 compression rings.

have you guys tried disconnecting the 'breather'? its the thing connected to the block below the intake manifold

well now if you wanna get technical, there are 2 scraper rings and one expansion ring in the oil ringland. lol.

and yes we disconnected the breather as the breather is the pcv system on a ka.

any new info? im curious as to what you find out. my guess is you connected an oil supply line to the intake accidentally

nothing as of yet.. he hasnt driven the car in sometime. we are still scratchin our heads though about it.