EJ22 Oil Burning on Startup

[criley2145]

I have a '90 legacy (ej22), rebuilt the motor, after that ended up having to put new valve seals and head gaskets in (on two separate occasions). Then it started blowing a decent sized puff of blue smoke out the tail pipe when I started it up in the morning, but didn't do it the rest of the day. I took it to Subaru and they said it was valve guides. I took the heads into the machine shop, had them speck everything out and put new valve seals on. They said everything checked out ok, so I put it back together hoping the seals did the job. It worked for a little bit, but then it started doing the morning start up smoke thing again. compression came back good, 140ish in each cylinder. the only other thing I can think of is oil rings? what about the pcv system, could that cause that much smoke?

thanks for the help.

[Legacy777]

Valve guides and valve seals are two different things. If the guides are worn, they could prematurely be wearing out the seals.

Since you didn't have problems for little while after replacing the seals, I'd suggest they go in and replace the guides.

You may be better off just getting a spare set of heads from a junkyard or one of the members on the board. That may be a cheaper option.

[criley2145]

i realize guides and seals are two different things. subaru diagnosed the problem as guides so i had the machine shop spec out the guides (which came back fine). i put new seals in just because i was in it that far and figured it couldn't hurt. also everything in the head was measured and spec'd out while they checked the guides, everything came back good.

[gijonas]

I am now having this problem now too with 4000 miles on my motor,however i think i have narrowed it down to my redesigned PCV system that has a bunch of "traps" in it now which are collecting moisture and oil vapor.

[douglas vincent]

How many miles on the engine? The piston rings could finally be going and when this happens, often oil will "leak" into the cylinders and burn off on strart up.

[criley2145]

maybe 10 or 11,000. i rebuilt it a while ago, honed the cylinders, spec
d out for stock rings with the stock pistons. maybe the oil ring never sat correctly?