Oil burning like crazy

[zallow]

Hi there,

I recently bought a used SOHC from some guy and it was burning oil pretty bad. So i got another one from some friend that was running it before with no problems at all. I even did a compression test on it and it was 170-180 across the board. When i installed it in my car, it was burning oil like mad and still is! At first, i thought it was the oil residue in the manifold still burning off. I used a ton of throttle body cleaner and was still burning oil.

Waited a couple days and now it's gotten to the point where the car is almost undriveable when it's cold. It hesitates really hard until it gets warm. Then it doesn't smoke so bad and drives fairly ok. Same thing was happening on the first engine i bought off the first guy but the hesitation was way less aggressive. I filled up the oil after installation and it took only 4 days for the dipstick to get dry as a bone. I was floored! And i know it's burning all of it, because it smokes blue like crazy and i'm not leaking oil anywhere under the car.

I had done a timing chain kit replacement and head gasket and head bolts on the first engine. So when i found out it was burning oil, i got really pissed on spending the money to find out i had bad rings or bad valve seals. Hence why i got the other engine off of my friend that was running fine. But now that it's in my car, it's absolutely horrendous and the only thing i did to that engine, was swapping my timing chain kit over. I know my friend wouldn't screw me over like that especially since he knew my situation with the first engine, so i'm really stumped here.

To my knowledge, there's only 2 way you can burn oil and it's thru the piston rings or valve seals. I didn't touch any of that on the 2nd engine i got. I didn't even touch the head. Is there something i'm missing here?

[scottydog]

You are correct, the only way you get oil burning/blue smoke out the exhaust is getting oil in the combustion chamber, either through bad valve seals, bad rings, or less commonly a head gasket.

Do the plugs look black/oily?

[csfirefighter23]

most likely if you are using the same head that you did on the old motor and you have good compression your valve seals or some type of head seal leak good luck

[zallow]

I'm not using the same head. I didn't touch the head this time. I only reused the timing chain kit and the intake/exhaust manifolds.

[scottydog]

Did you look at the plugs? Are one or more of them oily? That will tell you which cylinder is bad. If your compression is good has to be valve seals.

Likely you need to pull the head, replace valve seals plus new head gasket. Easier than pulling the engine. If it were mine I would have the head shop replace the valves, steam clean the head etc. Basically a top overhaul.

So what did the guy who sold you the engine have to say about this?