Dc4 Integra cold start issue

[James]

First off, this is my first post on this forum and I would like to say thank you to Eric. If you are reading this Eric, you are one of the biggest inspirations in my life to keep moving forward no matter how tough it gets. I watch every single one of your videos even if it doesn’t apply because of the ‘take-away’ that I get from so many of them. So again thank you for being etcg!

Onto the issue:

I have a 96 dc4 inegra LSi with 408k on the odometer that I recently purchased. It seems that it doesn’t have the original engine or at least the original cylinder head because the year stamp on the head cast says 9/8. The block may or may not be original and I have no service history other than what I will describe near the end of this post.

Okay so this is the problem: upon starting the engine with it at ambient temperature, the engine makes a loud tapping/knocking noise and a rather large puff of smoke that smells of half burned oil/fuel until I ever so slightly tap the accelerator then it immediately stops.

I regularly check the oil as it does use about a quart every 500-750 miles or so. I’ve never seen it smoke under any other conditions even at 7k rpms. It does appear to leak oil somewhere on the lower portion of the engine but never have I seen a puddle under the car and I’ve watched closely.

When I bought the car I preformed some maintenance on it which I will list below.

-Pennzoil conventional 5w 30 oil change with mobile 1 oil filter.
-Ngk titanium spark plugs
-Duralast gold plug wire set.
-Duralast gold cap and rotor.
-Valve cover gasket
-Pcv valve
-Oil pressure sending unit
-Seafoam treatment in the fuel tank.
-Removed and cleaned the throttle body.
-Preformed inspection of all vacuum lines and hoses.
-Tested coolant with hydrometer.
-Flushed clutch master cylinder thru slave cylinder bleeder replaced fluid with dot 3 brake fluid until it ran clear.

This sounds kind of like a Piston slap, but im wondering if it may be a ecm / fuel delivery issue.
I do hear the fuel pump prime but maybe a injector or filter issue? May a ecu glitch?

I’m lost in this diagnosis and I’m considering using a few techniques with a second opinion.

Lucas oil treatment?
Kerosene in the crankcase with a heat cycle before changing oil?
Maybe I will try to reset the ecu?

I remember I did disconnect the neg battery terminal a few times and I’m wondering if I improperly reset the ecu and long term fuel trims?

It throws me off because the car drives perfectly otherwise and I’ve never had a hiccup in performance or any smoke or sputtering other than the described symptoms. This issue keeps me up at night and Im not one to give up easily and throw a new(er) engine in it such as a jdm counterpart. Or maybe a rebuild is in order. But currently I don’t have the funds for either and i am currently fighting to get my son back. So anything I can do to at least help prevent this issue from becoming catastrophic would be great.

I live in Troy Ohio about an hour away from Eric’s shop and I would even drive there if he would agree to check it out for me. I don’t have much funding but I don’t expect something for nothing.

Any advice or opinions will be greatly appreciated and considered.

With that being said, as the legend says, stay dirty and have fun!

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[alex]

tapping when you first start is lack of oil getting to the top of the engine. stepping on the gas/accelerator pushes the oil more and gets it to where it needs.

im not well informed about this matter on my own yet except it could have a failing oil pump or clogged passages

[James]

Thank you for the reply!

That’s the path I was on in my thought process
But from my understanding there are two things i think about this:

Lack of oil in the cylinder head wouldnt cause unburnt oil/fuel

clogged oil passages would possibly set off my oil pressure dummy light and also cause symptoms in other conditions.

This is just my perspective at least.

[James]

Also I suspect valve stem seals may be leaking and putting oil into either intake or exhaust ports after sitting but under high vacuum via high rpms it should smoke when I let off the accelerator and then return to accelerate while above 4k-5k.

I’ve experienced this in my old eg hatch with 270k original miles and I’m not experiencing this in this situation.

[James]

Any opinions/suggestions?

[Author]

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