Smokey Prelude

REKOTS

MEMBER
HONDA PRELUDE

My son has been working on a 92 honda prelude s with the 2.2 liter engine. The car has 98,000 miles. We stored it last winter as we live in upstate new york and the 4" ground clearance and snow don't bode well together. Anyway, it was smoking a little bit before we put it away but now it smokes alot. It runs fine and we did a compression test (with fuel off and ignition unplugged) and we measured 185, 165, 200, 180 starting at the driver's side. None of the plugs appear oily when they are removed. They all have a dry whitish/beige appearance to the center electrode insulator. I'm in the belief that the valve seals have hardened from non use. Is there a way to check these and can they be replaced without taking off the head? Thanks

1 Reply

2CARPRO JACK

MECHANIC
11,533 POSTS

For starters, you have 1 cyl that is a little low. If you want to know if rings are the problem, put a little oil in the cyl and redo comp test. If pressure goes up, rings ok. The valve seals can be done on the car, but you have to apply alot of air pressure to the cylinders to hold the valves up in the head. Not really recommended unless you have access to a real good air compressor, if the valve falls, the head has to come off.