New Festiva smokes badly!!

[fastivaca]

Picked up my second Festiva yesterday, a dark blue '93 auto. It needs front brakes, headlights and smokes really bad. The brakes and headlights I can handle...the smoking is where you come in

Smokes worst under load, going up hills or accelerating. I pulled the spark plugs and the first three were white but number 4 was shiny black.

Would this be just a blown head gasket or am I looking at a cracked cylinder head, or worse? There doesn't appear to be any oil in the radiator.

Any and all suggestions appreciated

Thanks

[FestYboy]

try a blown intake valve seal.... easy to fix, but if you're going to go in there you might as well make some improvements like aspire cam and roller tiped rockers.

[Damkid]

theres only 3 ways for a motor to burn oil
1 valve seals or guides
2 piston rings
3 head gasket

i would definately start with the valve seal cause they'd be the cheapest and easiest

[25Horseplay]

What color smoke?

[miami man]

i had a 350 chevy engine that burned alot of oil after i rebuilt it and guess what? i forgot to gap the rings when rebuilding it.

[miami man]

my 91 smokes and has oil in the vaf meter box but the plugs are always no oil soot on them.

[fastivaca]

Finally had a chance to run a compression check on the smoking Festiva. I was surprised to find that all four cylinders were between 175 and 160 lbs :shock: Highest reading was in the #4 hole, the one with the really black spark plug. Any further suggestions greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[elcamino1]

If the spark plugs were white, blown head gasket or cracked head.

[Damkid]

on every piston there's 2 compression rings and 1 oil ring, if the oil ring has gone bad it won't clean off the excess oil on the cylinder walls as the piston goes down and therefore gets into the combustion chamber and burns the oil, so even though it has great compression you may need to replace the rings, and at that point it would probably be cheaper to replace the motor

i was told that if a motor smokes the worst under acceleration it's the piston rings, if it smokes more under deceleration it's the vavle seals

[elcamino1]

You never told us what color smoke?