My wife has an '04 Civic with an '04 K20A2 in it. When we bought the engine, it supposedly had 1600 miles on it. I say supposedly because all I have is a bill of sale which indicates as such, and I've questioned the validity of the mileage since the install. Since the install, we've put about 15K on the engine. That I know for a fact. Anyways, after the past year or so I've noticed that the engine is burning oil--approximately one quart per 3K miles. I know that certain Honda engines (like the S2000) are designed to burn a bit of oil, and I've read some RSX threads which talk about oil lose, so I didn't think to much about it.

Well, last night I decided to pull the plugs and take a look at their condition. They are Denso IK22s for what it is worth. The tips of the plugs indicated normal usage (good AFR), but there was some oil in the threads (on all 4 plugs). I showed pictures of the plugs to a guy at work, and he thinks the oil was caused by a leaking valve stem gasket. I looked at some pictures on a website which sells Acura parts and couldn't find a valve stem gasket. I am not sure that this particuliar engine has such an item.

Anyways, I was hoping you all could help me identify what part(s) is(are) failing and what the level of effort would be to repair/replace them. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

sometimes when the tube seals are leaking it will reach the threads but i doubt u got bad valve seals or guides on the motor, pull the valve cover and replace the gasket with the tube seals.

 

That would be a very simple fix and it would be great it if was that easy. Any other feedback?

 

sounds to me like the tube seals on the valve cover are leaking....start with those first assuming you don't see any oil build up on the tips of the plugs.

 

Here are some pics of the spark plugs:

 

um...Im not sure if you call it a valve stem gaskter...its normally called a valve cover gasket. Try looking for that.

 

They look fine. The 4th pic shows some signs of not being tightened all the way, and leaking some combustion gasses past the sealing washer. Otherwise no oil on them.

 

So, it is combustion gasses and not dried oil on the threads?

 

yup.

 

Ok. Well, that rules out that as a cause of the oil consumption.