what is wrong with my G's engine?

David Pertuz davidpertuz at mindspring.com
Sat Apr 10 16:38:57 CDT 2004


Bought a G20. On the way home I find that it has...an issue! Oops :) You
live and you learn. Otherwise it is a great car, and I reeeeeally like
driving the G, so if I need to I will just get a used (JDM?) DE and drop it
in and then worry no more. But if I can fix the problem for less effort and
money, obviously that would be good. But right now I am still trying to
figure out the problem, and I would appreciate the input of those on the
list who have dealt with these things. This is what I know or have found:

Before I got it, radiator neck cracked, engine got hot, when rad. was
replaced the head was taken off and shaved and the head gasket replaced.

It uses a lot of oil - like a quart every few hundred miles, apparently.

There is oil on the front of the block and tranny case, also around the VC
gasket and even the PCV fitting and the breather hose in the VC - as if it
had been seeping out under pressure. Possibly it is leaking from the
head/block interface, but there is oil above this too. Also on the hood mat.

However, I have used dye and a black light to check for leaks this week,
and wherever and whenever it came from, it does not appear to have leaked
this week.

All the plugs (Bosch plats) look fine - light grey. They have a little bit
of soot around the side of the bottom of the electrode, but nothing
obvisouly bad about the plugs. Not quite as clean as old plugs from my
SE-R, but nothing really off.

Idle is a a touch rough, but this smooths out by 2000 rpm or so, and above
that it is normal-feeling. The roughness is nothing bone-jarring - just
that it is not quite as smooth as my SE-R, which is like butter. It does
have what appears to be a bad dogbone mount, but I'm not sure (looks
different from SE-R dogbone)

Engine develops normal power, gets normal fuel economy.

Compression is ~175 for all four cylinders. Measured by pullinf the FP fuse
and cranking, though I did forget to open the throttle.
A peek into the cylinders through the plug holes shows carbony-looking
piston tops - they are black, anyway. Slight moisture, but this could be fuel.

I thought there was oil coming out of the tailpipe, but there is no visible
smoke. What I thought was oil (it was nighttime) is, I think, just soot
mixed in with water from condensation. I was told once that when I pulled
away (not when I started it up, though) that there was a brief puff of grey
smoke.

Looks clean when I look inside the oil filler cap.

Haven't done a leakdown test yet as I don't have air at home.

The PCV valve was not pulling any vacuum, and when I removed it is had a
lot of oily gunk on it, so I replaced it. There is oil around the hose
fittings for the PCV and also the lines from the VC and the oil canister to
the intake

Can any of you shed some light for me? Could it be a problem with the
crankcase ventilation system, dumping oil into the intake and burning it?
There are signs of a leak but it seems to be losing too much to be a leak.

thanks,
David


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