Preludes Drinking Oil Out Of Nowhere...

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cws13

Senior Member
Now in the past two weeks I have had five performance customers have their Preludes just start drinking oil overnight. Two lost motors and the other three lost v-tec first and brought them in, catching the low level. None had the oil light come on. I keep good tabs on these cars and know that they started burning it out of nowhere. All had mild bolt-on's, nothing extreme. Has anyone else been seeing this. I haven't had a chance to get one out and open yet but I'm assuming the rings are letting go all at once. The lack of warning signs is leaving me concerned about using the H series. All were around 80K and one of the ones that blew was an SH w/ 44K.
 
when you say nothing extreme, does that rule out turboed? Check to see if they have chiped them. Are there any signs of leaks or is it just burning it?
 
were they running stock ecu's...and was the air/fuel ratio on these cars good?

if they were running rich...the rings could have been "washed" out although it seems unlikely that all of the motors would give way at the same time...
 
No, I've seen people wash them out running stupid fuel pressure. I checked the ones with pressure regulators myself and I installed those, they were only like two pounds over stock anyway. None of these cars had a single oil leak and nothing more than headers, intake, exhaust, pulleys,stock ECU"S...All of these guys babyed their cars and came in for every service. Hell, one belonged to my business partner and I had changed the oil myself the day before and we rode together that night and it pulled great-then wham...3.5 qts gone. What's getting me is that even if the rings let go all at once he would have been losing power and that kind of pressure bleeding into the crankcase would have blown out at least one seal on one of these cars...
 
check to see if there is oil in the throttle body (if they have cai's) or if they have the stock air box, check to see if the filter is filled with oil. It could be (but probally isn't) the pcv valve.
 
Already checked that. I replace PCV valves frequently, just too cheap to skip. That's another thing, if they had blow by bad enough for this you will often see oil blown back through the intake due to crankcase pressure. None of that either. I've seen PCV's stuck closed build enough crankcase pressure to blow distributor seals many times so I think this should have popped at least one...but nothing. I'm stumped. One other thing I heard through the grape vine that Honda has recently identified this problem and released an updated block. However, I work for Honda too and can't find a part number or Technical Service Bulletin. :huh:
 
in.honda.com doesn't have anything on it? I honestly can't offer any ideas other than whats been said.

run leak down/comp tests on them if you can and see whats up.
 
I should be pulling one out to replace w/ a JDM spec soon. Hopefully I will have some time with the motor. Unfortunately, most guys want to be back on the road yesterday (understandably) and they already have plans for-or have sold their blown one to off-set the cost. I'll post what I find and if any one else gets to the bottom of this first please post/ e-mail me. This has to be beyond coincedence with the same mileage ect. and I have to know before I recommend another H-series swap.
 
My built B16 started to eat oil up really bad but it turns out my Distribtor once again went out and the seal was letting oil buy I took the distribcap off and oil poured out

but for you to lose 2-3quarts... it would be all over the trans/motor
 
ive actually heard of this... i just learned about this recently, the only thing the h22 guys told me was to watch my oil, because it just disappears. They dont know why, they dont know where its burning or where its going. They dont have huge black smoke coming out the exaust, they have really really clean motors, and really clean swaps. They just told me to watch it, because it just vanishes into thin air. Im really interested if you find something out, and i will definitly post if i find something out.
 
have you checked the pan it could be lose and allowing oil to leak? My b16 did this onday when it got knocked slightly
 
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