I just bought this 1995 240sx. 107k miles on ticker. I was warned that it goes through some oil. 320 miles, my first gas fill up. I lost > 1 quart of oil in that time! there's evidence of a little valve cover gasket leakage. but is there a notorious systemic issue with ka24de motors where oil could go?

exhaust seems oil free. coolant is clean and ethanal glycal looking.....

 

((forgot to mention....))

my plans for the car was to put a lot of miles on it while i save for an engine swap. i'm going to decide between LS1, sr20, rb...

 

thats mean to put alot of miles on it..ahah

 

Get that headgasket fixed.

Also, ever thought about going KA-T.
I think a blown head gasket is a calling.
Take off that head, bigger cams, rods, bearings, pistons, T25 turbo off of an SR. Haul ***.

KA Love brotha. KA Love.



I dearly miss my KA *sigh*

 

what weight and type of oil are you using and are there any visible leaks?

 

10w30 is what prev owner has been using. i don't see much oil under the engine. maybe the formation under the bell housing while it was on the lift at the exhaust shop today. i park in garage and there's no oil on the floor. it must be burning it, but i would guess it'd show up as smoke. hmm...

 

if you're going though that much oil and there aren't any visible leaks i would expect clouds of blue smoke coming from the exhaust and experience terrible performance. assuming that there aren't any leaks the first thing i'd do is check the spark plugs. see what they look like then i'd do a compression test. if both test look some what promising you could try switching to a 5w20 oil and hope for the best.

 

thanks for input! got some 5w to try.

I baby this car not knowing the history of it. I did mash throttle to merge yesterday and exhaust was hella smokey!

i remember old adage about smoke at idle is fuel and smoke at throttle is oil.-- do i remember that correctly?

 

the color of the smoke is a better indicator of the problem than when it smokes. blue is oil, black is fuel.

 

I have compression tester. I will have to get it back from a friend.

I've heard good things about leak down testing but i've never done it. form what i've read, it reveals where probs are.

if it fails compression, could be rings, valve seats, or head.

then i'll be at the historical impass:

on a budget:

1. rebuild ka + turbo (at least I know all parts are fresh)
2. sr20 swap (unknown motor history, nice forged internals from factory)
3. ls1 swap (also unknown motor history, less tuning complexity, lighter engine)

 

both the leak down and compression test will revival if the engine is in good condition or not but they will do it slightly differently. a leak down will measure the engines ability to retain pressure. that is to say that the head gasket,piston rings and valve seats are sealing properly. a compression test will show the engines (pistons)ability to produce pressure. but based of the numbers and if a wet and dry test are done the same can be determined.

the difference is that one requires the engine to be rotating while the other does not.
so knowing and understanding the procedure and results of either test is the important part. having a hypothetical reading of 150,50,49,155 or a loss of 15% across is meaningless if you don't know what the numbers mean. read up on the two tests and go for it.