[crazi-85crx]

My brother's '88 CRX Si has smoke coming from somewhere on the engine, and it looks and smells like burning oil. We just replaced the oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket, exhaust manifold gasket, and axle seals. All I can think of is that there is oil on the downpipe and it's burning off. It never smoked before this work, so I'm not too sure where it's coming from. There are NO oil spots under the car (it's been sitting all night), the oil level looks good, and the engine still runs like a bat oughta hell. FYI I will be jacking it up to get a better look at things tonight when the heat dies down a little.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Tiersin]

run the car outside for about 10 minutes with the hood up. let it cool, and wipe down the headers and down pipe. i've notices that even if there is a little bit of oil on them, it will smoke a lot.

how much is "a lot" BTW? like, thick as soup, or just a bit.

 

[crazi-85crx]

run the car outside for about 10 minutes with the hood up. let it cool, and wipe down the headers and down pipe. i've notices that even if there is a little bit of oil on them, it will smoke a lot.

how much is "a lot" BTW? like, thick as soup, or just a bit.

Thanks for the tips.

We test drove it around 11:30 PM, so "a lot" would be so much that when stopped at a light we could see smoke in front of the headlights, and when we pulled into a parking lot to check it we could make a pretty good beam with a flashlight. And when popping the hood, you want to stand back incase of a fireball.
I always had this kind of problem with my 1st gen CRX because of oil on the down pipe, so I figured that would be a worthy foe.

But I'll take a closer look tonight and give everything a good wipe-down.

 

[Tiersin]

hmmm, maybe a blown headgasket? is it more smoke or steam, check your collant levels and check that the hose connecting the radiator to the overfill tank are connect tight, i had that problem. i would say thats more searious than oil on the exhaust.

one more idea, check the valve cover, cometimes the rubber seal will not seat correctly and that could let oil drip on the exhaust.