Burning oil, not sure if valve stems or piston rings

[Gothmog3VZ]

Hey guys! Got a bit of a glitch here...

As some of you may know, I've been planning a twin turbo build for my car (actually doing it, already bought turbos). However, there's a small glitch.

My car has recently started burning oil on startup - Dad noticed when I left for work yesterday that it was burning when I left the driveway. Now, this only happens on startup when the engine is cold - if the engine is warmed up, she runs A-OK! Talking with LeMegaCool, think it's either piston rings, or possibly valve stems. Wondering how to tell which it is without tearing apart the motor, compression test would tell for piston rings, but not sure if a valve-stem-seal issue would interfere with it. Kind of important too, because if it's piston rings, then I may as well just buy a new motor for my build...

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[carsrus]

Sounds like valve stem seals. How many miles on the engine? What are your compression numbers?

Turbo on an aged motor will just quicken its demise. At a minimum I would do a light rebuild (rings, bearings, gaskets). Im sure you know that already though.

[Chris Crash]

I think for a serious twin turbo build, regardless, you should plan to rebuild.

[Gothmog3VZ]

Originally Posted by carsrus

Sounds like valve stem seals. How many miles on the engine? What are your compression numbers?

Turbo on an aged motor will just quicken its demise. At a minimum I would do a light rebuild (rings, bearings, gaskets). Im sure you know that already though.

Don't know yet, will probably go to my dad's mechanic for test sometime this week (don't have the equipment to do that at my place)

engine has 274k km (so about 160k miles, rough guesstimate).

Originally Posted by Chris Crash

I think for a serious twin turbo build, regardless, you should plan to rebuild.

Yeah, I think I'll probably just save up my money and get the engine rebuilt, postpone the turbo build for a bit. Getting a shop to do it would be $1-2k, from what I've read, so I'm going to research, and see what I can DIY - if I wind up rebuilding it, I'll probably go the whole 9 yards, get forged pistons and stronger valve-springs, do it once and do it right.

any recommendations for parts, brand wise? (other than OEM)

[Mister_Perkins]

ide recommend Felpro

But yeah , I agree with the consensus and I say that your stem seals are leaking a little bit. When the motor heats up, its probably expanding everything sealing the crack up until it cools

[lemegacool]

if i had time we could meet up in a parking lot and do a comp test on the front banks but i'm really busy this week i'm going to replace o2 sensors in a buddy's car 45min away tonight... maybe tomorrow... or if your dad'S mechanic is going to do it for free then go for it

thing is do you have a spare car? rebuilding the engine will put you car down for some time... need to strip the engine first to measure what kind of bearings/pistons youll need for the rebuild... then order parts and wash/machine the heads/block and rebuild the head..

[Gothmog3VZ]

Originally Posted by lemegacool

if i had time we could meet up in a parking lot and do a comp test on the front banks but i'm really busy this week i'm going to replace o2 sensors in a buddy's car 45min away tonight... maybe tomorrow... or if your dad'S mechanic is going to do it for free then go for it

thing is do you have a spare car? rebuilding the engine will put you car down for some time... need to strip the engine first to measure what kind of bearings/pistons youll need for the rebuild... then order parts and wash/machine the heads/block and rebuild the head..

I'd love to tomorrow, but I've got work from 10-8 (ah well, it'll pay for the parts, so no complaints). Going to pass by his mechanic tomorrow and see if/how much they'll charge for that.


I don't have a spare car, but I usually travel to school via bus (saves the headache of finding parking and paying $400/year for a decal), and I'll borrow parent's cars for everything else, so it's not a terribly huge inconvenience.