What causes all four cylinder on my 90 Honda accord, spark plug ends are wet with oil? I change the head on my car and all I does is smokes. Runs for at least an hour at idle then stalls out. What can this problem be and how can I fix this?

Keith, March 2013

Was it like this before you changed head?
Sounds like piston rings,take oil cap off is thair lots of pressure blowing out. or valve stem seals leaking or youve overfilled the oil and its blowing it from crank case to air intake,,

Steven,s,, March 2013

You also have blue smoke comming out?
You are burning the engine oil.
As you changed the heads, and hopefully the gaskets at the same time, that's not the cause. This also rules out the valves sleeves leaking oil.

It looks like the segment of the pistons are broken or worn out. It also can be the cylinders that are ovalised to much, preventing adequate contact with the segments.

It's a big, and dirty, job opening the engine to replace the segments, but can be done by a determined and properly tooled amateur mechanic.

If the cylinders need recalibrating, you need to have access to some specialised tools: An inverted lathe. Normaly, only some mechanic shops have them.

It may be cheaper to just replace the whole engine...

Electro, March 2013