"Homemade" Upper Cylinder Lube

[JohnNeiferd]

Long story short: I steam cleaned my 1987 Civic 1.5L (292,000 miles) by slowly pouring water down the carb. No hydrolocking or anything, but I discovered a lot of water in my oil. Problem: Blow-by. Solution: Thats where my experiment comes in.

I mixed up this upper cylinder lubricant in hopes that it would help the rings seal slightly a bit better.

5oz. Marvel Mystery Oil
Reason: Oil (Lubrication) with some Mineral Spirits (keep deposits down)

1.5oz. CD2 Lead Substitue
Reason: Had it laying around house forever and never used it. Says it prevents metal to metal contact by creating a protective film. Car doesn't have cat and oxygen sensor is a mere $17 to replace if necessary.

1oz. Castrol Two-Stroke Motorcycle Oil
Reason: Two-Stroke oils job is basically entire engine lube, including top cylinder. Castrol claims high detergent levels to prevent ash and other deposits.

I use on Shell Gasoline (a top tier fuel) so that should also help to prevent deposit build up.

So, what do you guys think? Have any recommendations that I should add to the mix? Maybe something for more lube or something for more cleaning power? One side effect I enjoy is the fact that MMO is red and two-stroke oil is blue, so the mixture is a nice purple color. Don't see too many people pouring purple substances in their gas tanks .

As for the blow-by, I am also chaning my oil, putting in cheap SuperTech High Mileage 10W-30, with some RESTORE additive. 90% of the reviews I've seen on RESTORE are positive, and a friend of mine said it caused his S10 to stop burning oil so I figure it has to help cut down on blow-by a tad.

If I had the time and money, I'd just put on Total Seal Gapless Piston Rings, but until it becomes an unberrable problem I'll stick to the cheap fixes.

However, the upper cylinder lube. What do you guys think?

[Jay2TheRescue]

I don't know about Restore. I used it on my Bonneville wagon when it had like 170,000 miles on it at the time. The car never burned oil before, but afterwards the car would burn oil on cold starts till it warmed up. I never noticed an increase in FE or power afterwards. If I had it to do all over again I would not put that stuff in the car.

-Jay

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by JohnNeiferd

Have any recommendations that I should add to the mix?

[JohnNeiferd]

theholycow,
Your picture was actually a good suggestion. I'll throw in some horseradish and red savana habaneros, if those can clear out a stuffed up nose it'll defineately clear out some clogged carb jets, lol.

Jay2theRescue,
I've added Restore to my Lumina at the last oil change and it has cut down on burning oil. Last time, It was actually burning oil so fast it stalled as I was backing out of the drive due to low oil. This time, at the same amount of miles, no problems and the oil level is higher. I doubt it could have been from a lose drain bolt since I have a habit of making sure everything is extra snug. Luckily I didn't catch on to my father's habit of making tightening it until the bolt is rounded off.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

I never had much luck with shell, seemed to gunk up my motor, and gets lower mileage than other top tier fuels.

MMO might clean stuff out but it's a bit short on lubricants, it's mostly solvents.

2 stroke oil might do some in cylinder lubricating, be double sure it's ashless though, the only 2 stroke oils I'd recommend are marine TC-W3 and better spec oils, these are designed for multi thousand dollar outboard engines, many of which now have electronic control and O2 sensors, not your basic throwaway 79.99 weed whacker.

However, best plan would be to switch to a "High Mileage" motor oil, they are incomparable for sealing up older motors, cutting oil burning and cleaning them out. They have high detergent packages for unsticking rings and desludging plus seal conditioners and extra high pressure lube and metal conditioning additives. There's two in particular I feel are "best" in a leaky smoky motor, those are Castrol High Mileage and Pennzoil High Milage. Valvoline Maxlife and Mobil 2000 seem to be too aggressive in cleaning and don't seem to have the sealing ability of the others. Those would be fine in an otherwise tight but dirty high mileage motor, especially those prone to sludge problems but the other two seem to hit the sweet spot for everything else. The initial cost is high, you can find them for $15 for 5 quarts... but you don't need any snakeoil and after a week or two of running it in, you'll find oil consumption drops enough that it usually pays for itself in lack of top-ups.

I have had good results with an ounce TC-W3 oil in combo with methanol, other people report gains with 1-4oz of canola oil plus 4-8oz isopropyl alcohol.

[JohnNeiferd]

Ah yes, canola oil. I don't know why I didn't think of that before, I actually put some of that in my four-wheeler a while back. I beat on it pretty hard so I figured every drop of lubrication helps. What the does methanol or isoproply alcohol do though?

Oh, and as for Shell Gas, its the only top tier fuel availabe in my area. I have a choice between Shell, Marathon, Murphy USA (Walmart), Lassus Handy Dandy (whatever they get), and Certified. I don't think Marathon is bad, but I'll stick with Shell since Marathon isn't top tier rated yet.

[Zukibot]

I do that same "homebrew" fuel additive thingy...

My usual, is a MMO/LUCL (Lucas) mix, but lately I have been adding the TC-W3 to the brew.

I've found that using 4 to 5 ounces in the SX4's 11.9 gallon tank, every other fill-up or so, to be my "right" ratio.

You're correct about that really nice purple color!

[maxxgraphix]

Too much blow by is caused by 2 things.
1. Rings stuck in grooves by carbon build up
2. Sloppy bores.
3. Scored walls

Solutions for #1
Soak chambers with transmission fluid overnight or Marvel Mystery Oil
Result: Rings break free and engine runs great

Solutions #2 & #3
rebuild engine

Tip: I haven't seen a modern engine with stuck rings ever. Only pre 80's American products have I brought back from the dead by this method.

Note: A ton of STP Oil Treatment will help slow the blowby. But will trash the crank bearings.

[GasSavers_bobski]

4. Worn piston rings

Very common issue in high-milage Hondas. I think the engineers decided to make the rings out of a softer material so as to minimize wear on the cylinder bore. I had a D16A6 that was burning oil at higher RPMs and the compression was starting to fall off. I replaced it with a D16Z6 and sold it off to a guy who wanted to rebuild it for his autocross car. He wanted to make sure it didn't have overbore pistons in it before buying, so we popped the head off and not only confirmed the original pistons, but that you could still see the factory honing marks on the cylinder walls.
Anyway, it's a lot cheaper to replace the rings than the cylinder liner, but that's really the only solution here -- replacing the rings. That means removing the cylinder head, oil pan and unbolting the connecting rods from the crank. Might as well replace the rod bearings while you're in there.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Originally Posted by maxxgraphix

Note: A ton of STP Oil Treatment will help slow the blowby. But will trash the crank bearings.

Unless the bearings are worn enough that there's enough clearance to run molasses for oil