I recently rebuilt this nifty little GS I picked up for 400$. I bought it with the intention of rebuilding and selling it but to be honest, I have fallen in love with this little car. I use to drive a 2001 GTP that would run 13.7's but that car wasn't even close to as much fun as this little eclipse is.

After professing my love for the car I have begun the long and arduous task of find any and all things wrong with her and I must be honest it is quite a bit. I recently hit the 600 mile mark after the rebuild and decided to try a WOT pull in first from a 10 mph roll. This was not the smartest, a plume of white smoke came out and now all I can think is that the oil rings did not seat properly (they are 180 degrees apart at install). I also rebuilt the head with new valve seals and unless the car is under extreme stress it doesn't smoke. How many miles until I say "okay I have to pull the motor and re-ring it"?

Also how do you change your password on this site? I don't like the random alpha-numeric one that was given to me.

Thank you

Mark

600 miles may not be enough for the rings to fully seat. Depends on what kind of rings they are too. I did 1000 city miles after my build just to be safe and never had a problem.

They are not file to fit if that is what your asking. The rings that I used are the ones that came with the crankshaft kit from autozone (pretty cheap for 174.00$)

I've been trying to pull as much vacuum as possible so every chance I get I downshift as I pull up to a stop.

Do you think I hurt the seating process by going WOT too soon?

I have an oil change waiting for the car what mile do you think I should change the oil. I was thinking pretty soon maybe around 650?

Most people recommend breaking in the motor pretty hard to seat the rings. When I built my motor I started it up and let it warm up fully checking for oil pressure, leaks etc. After letting it cool I took it out and did about 10-15 WOT pulls up to 5k or so letting it engine brake back down. Driving the car easy is not a good way to try and seat the rings

Agreed, I plan on doing many WOT pulls right out of the gate once I rebuild (after properly;y warming up of course)I guess the main thing that concerns me is the rings, autozone rings that is... If I am rebuilding the motor I'd be going with good brand named parts.

I'm sure there rings out there that are made of superior materials I'm not saying that they work as well as performance parts but, for daily driving (which is what this car will be used for) I don't see any problem with them.

At this point I'm more concerned with getting all the bugs out of her.

Rear defroster needs to be painted back on

heater core needs to be replaced (yes no heat of defroster so if the car fogs up I have to Ace Ventura it all the way home)

passenger side door handle needs to be replaced

spoiler needs to be painted

driver side mirror needs internals swapped with original housing

fog lights need to be re-installed

power window motor (or regulator) need to be replaced (driver side window does not roll up correctly, I have to pull back on it to get it to set right while the window is rolling up)

there's more than that but this car was a total basket case, not including the fact that whoever worked on the car before broke all the connector clips that keep them on there respective sensor. So I have weird stuff like the check engine light and the speedometer freaking out all the time.

Originally posted by papajohnspimp
They are not file to fit if that is what your asking. The rings that I used are the ones that came with the crankshaft kit from autozone (pretty cheap for 174.00$)

Im not talking about 'file to fit' rings. But more the brand of the rings because some performance rings will fully seat after one hard pull and then some may take longer. But you say theyre autozone rings so I dont know much about what kind of rings they use.

Originally posted by papajohnspimp
They are not file to fit if that is what your asking.

Are you saying you never checked the gaps?

Originally posted by bullettdsm

Originally posted by papajohnspimp They are not file to fit if that is what your asking.

Are you saying you never checked the gaps?

Ruh roh.

Any ring gap must be checked out of the box. There is no one size fits all gap.

lol I don't check ring gaps unless they are specifically file to fit..


The smoking is gone a few hard pulls and shes right as rain.

Ouch!.. If you didnt check the gaps then u overlooked an important step. Always check all clearances and tolerances. It could be something like even one ring being the culprit, or a ring you installed upside down.

just to revive an old topic for everyone to know the real reason it was smoking.

The PCV system was sucking oil in through the intake tube and intake manifold. The IAT sensor was drenched in oil when I had to remove it to replace the heater core.

I capped off the ends and there is no more oil consumption at all, its a beautiful thing.