Sometimes Being Wrong is a Good Thing

In my last rant I went on and on about crank case pressure and thought that I had hurt my motor. I took a deeper look into my problems and investigated further.

I have a five old daughter named Zoey. She likes to work on cars and she loves my Honda. During my last post I reported my dipstick hanging out as if crank case pressure pushed it out. Come to find out while I was investigating the oil under my car Zoey decided to check my oil for oil me. When she put back the dipstick, she didn't push it down far enough. She is so cute for trying to help! I was reading her a story a few nights ago and she told me what she had done.

Relief number one: crank case pressure did not push out my dip stick.

Days ago I had poured in Brad Penn oil. About 15 minutes after this I noticed oil started to leak. It almost looked as if the header itself was leaking! Clearly something cracked and I prayed that the oil was not coming out of my header. I removed my header and bam- the oil pan was cracked...



I had the brace on the megaphone too loose. Somehow the seam on the megaphone rubbed that hole in from the lack of tension on the megaphone.

Relief number two: oil didn't leak out because of crank case pressure. Yay!

When it rains, it pours. My Jeep's thermostat housing started to leak coolant. Two bolts hold on the thermostat cover. The first bolt came out okay, but the second bolt snapped. I tried and tried, but I could not get the bolt to come out. Both of my vehicles were down.

My wife and I found a local welder, Wagner Prop Shop that was only a few miles away. We walked over to their shop with my oil pan. The staff there was awesome! Not only did they weld my oil pan right away they only charged my $15 bucks. Here's the results...



I installed the oil pan, new plugs gapped at .035", and my header. This time I tightened the brace a little more so it can't move.

My lawn mower battery just didn't have the CCA that it used to. I had to get another battery. I wanted to do a compression test but that damn battery just couldn't do it. I didn't want to walk 10 miles to the next Walmart to get another battery. So I jump started my Civic and drove down to Walmart.

I am glad to report that my engine ran like a dream to Walmart and back. I recently put in a few gallons of VP 110 race fuel*. Combined with new plugs my motor really felt nice. I'm sure thirty two degree ambient temps helped out as well.

There at Walmart, I picked up another lawn mower battery that has 275 CCA compared to my old batteries 230 CCA. Once installed the new battery had no problem getting my engine started. I installed the battery at Walmart. I'm glad to report that I have no oil leaks and my dip stick did not pop out. Everything motor wise is checking out nicely so far.

I plan to do a compression test during my lunch break at work tomorrow. More updates soon. Thanks for reading!

*Some of you may remember that I spoke of switching to E85 fuel. Last June E85 had a significant blend change. In my area E85 is more like E70 and carries only a 95ish octane rating. VP 110 has an octane rating of 107 and was formulated for engines that have 12 - 14.0 compression ratios. I decided to stick with VP fuel at this time.

Still Truckin' =)

Hello world! It's been too long since I have updated this blog. My project is still alive and kicking, well sort of.

It's that time for me to do a tune up in my high compression mini me. When I first built this motor I started off with off the shelf Valvoline 5w-30 oil. After 500 miles I changed the oil to off the shelf Royal Purple 5w-30. I felt that the RP worked rather well. I hardly burned any oil at all and my head has well over 150,000 miles on it.

I'm the type of person that likes to test a variety of products, including oils. Next oil change I decided to give Castrol Syntec Edge with Titanium synthetic a shot. I feel that this oil did not perform as well as the RP. The RP stayed cleaner longer and did not burn off like the Castrol oil did. In 3000 miles my motor ate about a 1/16th of a quart of oil compared to the Castrol's 1/4 of a quart of oil consumption in the same amount of miles.

This time around I'm giving Brad Penn a try. I bought 10w-30, an oem S2000 oil filter and some new NGK spark plugs.

Recently my little lawn mower battery took a crap on me and it oozed out a bunch of battery juice. It hasn't been able to keep a charge for more than a day. I tried to start it up and it cranked a few times before the voltage plummeted. It was to the point where the main relay was clicking like crazy and my volts gauge showed less than 8 volts. I thought no big deal, I've had this battery for two years and have been charging it with more amps than it was meant to handle. Since I wasn't able to get it to start, I pushed my car into my work area.

I was working on my car yesterday making the card board template for my battery tray and catch can. I noticed that my dip stick was sticking out a bit as if I hadn't pushed it down enough. I look under my car and there was a small puddle oil under right under the oil pan drain. A good size, at least six inches in diameter. Keep in mind I rolled my car into where it is now and it only sat for a day. I did not try to start it while it's been in the back. But my engine developed enough crank case pressure just sitting there to push out the dipstick and to push oil out of the drain bung. My engine is rather clean and I could not find anywhere else where oil could have leaked from.

The last time I drove my car was when I did a first through four gear pull. I did check my motor after that pull and there was no leaks, no excessive crank case pressure, no smoke out of the exhaust or crank case breathers, and the ECT was only 186* during and after the pull. My catch can has a little oil in it and it the line going to the back of the block. 

I drained all of my oil out. It was a bit dirty but there was no shavings, coolant or debris in the oil. Once I get another battery I'm going to do a compression test. My spark plugs look great, no detonation, no pitting, no debris. 

I realize that either the head gasket, pistons or rings will cause this kind of crankcase pressure. So far I have nothing to lead me to that being the case. My engine never misfires and wasn't running bad at all. I've read many "p29 broken ring land" threads in the last few days. My engine didn't have any of the problems that other D series forums have had. In fact I have ran only one set of plugs, a set of R5671A-9. I pulled the plugs today. A little rich but other wise not bad at all for having 6500 miles on them. 

 

I should have mentioned that this has happened once in the past where the oil breather box puked out some oil. It was a similar situation with low battery voltages and me cranking on it. Funny, the lawn mower battery has enough CCA to crank the engine over but it doesn't have enough umph to power the ignition system and fuel pump. The engine will crank and crank but won't start. In those situations is when my motor pukes oil. 

I would have thought that all of the excess crank case pressure would have gone into my catch can. But there was only a little oil inside and a small amount residing in the tube (I used a clear braided hose). I can see light through my catch can's filter so I don't think the filter is clogged. My valve cover vent is open, not connected to anything. There isn't any oil all over my throttle body or intake manifold. Plus my motor only leaked this oil after I pushed it 30 feet from where it was. I checked the spot where I had my car last running and there is no oil deposit on the ground.   

Tomorrow I am going to buy a new battery so I can do a compression test. Hopefully the compression test will come out the way I want it to. Updates soon.