Well I'm losing about 2 quarts every 30 miles now. I found where te leak was coming from sort of. When I shine a light down behind the timing belt cover (between the t-belt and head) I can see oil squirting out. Are there like seals and stuff in there somewhere? That's too far up to be the HG I think.

Its not just the valve cover gasket in that spot? or is it lower than that, but higher than the headgasket?

Cam seals?



15.9 @ 86.7mph
97 Eclipse RS

Injen CAI, 55mm TB, P&P Intake, Crower Stage 2 Cams, Hooker Header, GS-T Muffler, AFX UDP, Crane Ign Amp, S-AFC

>Cam seals?

My guess as well....

I concur.
Do you concur?

<great quote from "Catch Me if you Can">

But yeah, in my own convoluted way, I just said that I agree that it is a cam seal. Replace both. Fairly cheap fix.
-=B-=

I was hoping it was they VC gasket but I replaced that and it's still spraying :( How involved is the cam seal process? I have a FSM but I'm at work. Does it involve taking the t-belt off? I hope not but I'm sure it does. BTW I filled my oil up and by the time I got to work it's almost all gone. I was at 12psi oil pressure at idle. Next will be a spun bearing :rolleyes

Cam Seals, gotta get the cam gears off to put the seals around the cams.

________________________________________________________________________________________
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Alright thanks for the quick replys guys. I'm going to buy a beater tomorrow hopefully and put this POS car away and tear it apart. Let's see now I gotta replace the cam seals, valve cover again, HG, clutch, shocks, tires, ball joints, turbo... Man if I wasn't addicted to boost this car would be rolling off a cliff.

BTW the t-belt has about 10K miles on it. Will I need a new one when I redo it?

you don't need a new timing belt just make sure you mark the direction is rotating and put it back on facing the same way. and make sure and put the pin in the tensioner before you release the tension

yep, gotta be the oil seals. I had a problem when i had done my busted piston transplant a few months back. It so happend that the inner lip of the oil seal got flipped over at one spot on the oil seal, and was leaking out oil pretty bad. Here is a pic.



Not saying this is what happened, but its possible. Also be sure that the cam seal is pushed all the way into the head. It *could leak if its not in all the way..

Um I can actually see the rubber when I look down in there. I guess that's not good huh? It has to be pretty bad to leak out 4 quarts in 45 minutes I guess.

One more question while we are on the subject. I'll probably just clean up and re-seal my old head since the one on there now has a stripped exhaust manifold bolt. Anyway when I put the cams back in do I need to get new bearing caps or are those reuseable? If I need new ones how much do they run?

Yeah, you will be able to see the seals no problem, thats what it should be like. With the seals all the way in, i belive there is about a good 1/8" from the edge of the seal, to the outside edge of where the seal goes..that makes sense..If the seal is flush with the metal of the head, then i suppose its possible to leak...can you see how far in the seals are? If the seal is protuding past the cylinder head, like its sticking out, then thats bad.

Yeah, you can reuse the bearing caps provided they are not scored or anything like that. Be SURE to put them back in the same place them came out of

Just thought of this too. You have had the cams and or bearing caps off before right? Did you by chance put black RTV on the outer last bearing cap? The one that houses the oil seals? You need to put the RTV on the outer edge of that bearing cap, because thats the only thing that seals it from oil coming out between the cap and the head..something to check if thats the case..

I don't know about the RTV. I didn't put the head together and I honestly didn't pay attention to it when the VC was off. Now the head isn't going to need planed if I just take it off and put it right back on right?

And yeah I can see the rubber seals on the outside of the head. Like when I look down in there I can see the outside of it. Looks like an o-ring and is covered in oil.

>I don't know about the RTV. I didn't put the head together
>and I honestly didn't pay attention to it when the VC was off.
> Now the head isn't going to need planed if I just take it off
>and put it right back on right?

Well that is a grey area really. If it has been machined before,and was nice and flat before install, then it should be fine. If in doubt, you can always have the head checked for flatness. When i replaced my broken piston, i did not do anyting to the head or block, and i have no issues what so ever, even with 8 to 10 psi boost. The MOST important thing to remember when removeing the head, is to be sure the car has sat at least overnight to fully cool down. Then, be sure to loosen the head bolts in the specified sequence in the FSM. This is to be sure the head wont warp when removing. Same goes for the re-install.
>
>And yeah I can see the rubber seals on the outside of the
>head. Like when I look down in there I can see the outside of
>it. Looks like an o-ring and is covered in oil. Well you should not be able to see the oil seal(yep its a o-ring) just by looking straright downward on it. If you can, then the seal is prob not in much at all. That explains your massive oil leak :(

On the head, on the underside of where the end of the cam journal is, right on the inside if the oil seal, there is a oil supply galley hole, to feed oil onto the cam journal/bearings. If oil is actually squriting out, then that is def an oil seal issue. The seal is prob not even in the head..

Alright thanks for the help Matt!! I hope I can find a CHEAP ass car tomorrow because I can't afford to use like 10 quarts of oil a day. Plus it's like 0 degrees outside so there's no way I'm trying to fix it.