smoking engine

scott101smith

hey there im looking for some advice on this one,

vectra 2.2 sri smoking/burning oil really badly... using about 1L oil for every 100-150 miles

compression test results are, DRY= 1.210psi 2.200psi 3.200psi 4.205psi
WET= 1.270psi 2.250psi 3.250psi 4.265psi

also checked throttle body and found caked in oil gunk, cleaned to a mirror finish but still smoking.

egr system still standard.

eml on, code showing a lambda sensor down

please help.

cheers

scott

MikeS

why did you wet test it when all 4 cylinders are running 14 bar

there is no serious indifference in cylinders

look in your haynes manual states there is a 1 bar tolerance between cylinders

take off your cam cover breather hose and start up the engine, is it breathing really heavily ?

scott101smith

just wanted to be sure nothing major was wrong.

what breather?
the little one witch goes from cam cover to air intake pipe?

BURT150

Its a difficult one to say exactly what it is as it could be a few or combination of things.

When you had the T/B off did you look inside the inlet manifold? they can get badly gunked up so might be woth a clean out.

You need to check everywhere for leaks like power stering pump where it meets the head, water pump housing rocker cover and everywhere else.

Once you have eliminated those problems first then start looking into weather it could be rings or more likely going by your compression test valve guides and stem seals.

Mines quite bad but its worse if you drive it hard.

scott101smith

well there looked to be a bit of wet fresh oil inside the inlet manifold too.
there is no leaks from engine at all, its dry as a bone.
what about egr could tht cause it?

BURT150

Thats one less thing to worry about then.

No the egr wont cause problems with burning oil.

They can stick open and cause poor running and do a good job of sooting up the inlet. Thats why nearly everyone on here has a cheater or has them blocked off.

MikeS

getting through a litre every hundred miles i doubt there would be any need for a wet compression test 🙁

and yes hose coming off cam cover to intake pipe

also your dipstick

is smoke bellowing out of both ?

scott101smith

checked and there is only a slight feel of presurre coming from the cam cover breather and very little from the dipstick...
looks like this is a common fault with these engines by the looks of it on the boards.

car drives and runs spot on other than puffin smoke at high rpms.

again any help is much appricated.

MikeS

go with stems/ guides

relatively cheap if you do it yourself as well

compression seems fine

what did you spark plugs look like

scott101smith

plug tips where white in colour, engine dosnt use any other fluid other than oil tho.
how long and easy a job on these engines?

need to use car daily, so off the road for a couple of days isnt a option.

cheers scott

MikeS

so your burning off a litre of oil every 100 miles and your spark plugs are showing no contamination ?

one teaspoon of oil will burn off a cloud of smoke m8, a litre every 100 miles will be like a Kuwait oil well

i use to burn off around 2 litres every 400 miles and it was a constant plume of smoke and that had a knackered bottom end [ old nova]

jimmy

Hi dude I have just fixed the same problem you have. Mine was burning litre every 100 miles no real sign of smoke out the back till I booted it even then only a hint also had a compression test of 14.5 bar on every cylinder and the engine light on. Took the head off skimmed new vavle stem seals took the pistons out to find the bottom oil scraper rings were all caked in what looked like burnt oil got them all cleaned and fitted new rings then honed the glaze off the bores with a cross hatch plonked it all back together cleaned the egr valve job done running sweet.