I have searched up and down and can’t really find a direct answer in any of the posts. I hope someone can give me some guidance. I generally do most of the easy/moderate work on my car myself and prefer to have a good idea of the problem before going to the dealership.

I have a pretty bad oil leak. It started about 6 months ago. At first I would have to put in a quart every 600 miles and now it’s down to about 200 miles. I’ve added at least 10 extra quarts by now. When I do an oil change the oil that comes out is nice and clean! Haha. I do not see any obvious leaks. Nothing anywhere under the hood, on the pavement, nothing in the coolant reservoir tank, everything looks clean. So the way I figure, the oil has to be going into the Engine or somewhere else where it’s being burned off. A few months ago I changed out the spark plugs because I was getting misfires (30K miles on them) and I did not see any oil in the Engine or the spark plugs (they were very dirty and corroded, but did not have any oil on them)

Other symptoms (2004 with 72,000 miles Original Engine and Cat)
• A few days ago the CEL came on with P2259, but I suspect that’s not related since I changed a different solenoid (SSV) about 6 months ago. I suspect I should have changed all the solenoids at once.
• Coolant light comes on with heavy driving, but then goes off when the RPMs drop again. (I read this is probably nothing and just a bad sensor). I check the coolant regularly and the level is good, the color is normal and the smell is sweet
• When I drive the car hard, it smells very bad in the interior of the car a few minutes after driving at 7K+ RPMs
• I do not notice any power loss ever.
• Sometimes the CEL flashes when during the card hard (happened 2-3 times in 6 months), but again there is no issues with power and then the CEL goes away and nothing comes up on the code reader.
• With cold start, a lot of white stinky smoke comes out of the tailpipe for about 1-2 minutes. Then its normal afterwards
• The Cat gets very hot! I did the "drive it super hard at night test" and it did glow around the O2 sensor. Plus the metal bracket holding the passenger seat to the floor gets super-hot after driving 1+ hours.

Some things that I am thinking
1. Maybe I somehow messed up the oil pump “stuff” when fixing my SSV solenoid over the summer and way too much oil is being pumped into the Engine? I have not done much research in this area, but I believe there are a whole bunch of metering pumps/levelers/switches/solenoids that control how much oils is sprayed inside the Engine?
2. Oil leak into the Engine?
3. Oil leak directly into the Cat? Is this even possible?
4. Something else?

 

You need to replace that CAT ASAP. Bad CATs lead to blown engine. Delete it with a Midpipe of somesort. I would recommend BHR, or Gut it. But you shouldn't drive the 8 with a cat like that. As for the oil leak, what do you mean you dont see any major oil leaks? There shouldnt be oil leaking ANYWHERE.

Chris

 

Pull the CAT off and inspect the honeycomb. It is a fairly simple job, there is a DIY here in the forums. That will answer one of your questions, as well as possibly delete that misfire you are getting occasionly under high load. But i would go through your whole ignition system. Oil could also be 'puddling' inside of your intake accordian. I suggest checking that out as well.

 

A quart every 200 miles is quite a good leak. Clean up the engine really well and then you should be able to see new leaks.

Is your coolant level dropping? White smoke at startup is often coolant seals leaking. You can get the Cooling system pressure tested...it should show up a leak

 

When was the last time you looked at or replaced the air filter?

 

Also, why is this in the series 2 sub-forum?

 

It may be loaded with oil...i completely forgot about this.

 

Oops. Did not realize there were two forums. How do I move the thread?

 

I am having the same issue only my 2004 rx8 is using a quart every 60-70 miles. I have rebuilt several RX8 engines and this is the first time I have had this issue. No oil leaks and smokes blue smoke at start up and when going into hard turns. New apex seals , corner seals new rotor oil rings (rubber) I did reuse the side seals as they only had 200 miles on them. New air filter ....... air box and intake tube is all oil free. One corner seal I reused did have a clearance of .012 between corner seal and side seal. Car runs great no misfire hot starts with no problem. Car runs cool has never over heated. All the searches I have done always say its the rotor oil ring seals. The metal oil rings were well within spec with no cracks or nicks. Any help would be great. Thanks guys

 

You really only have 2 choices...it's either leaking out someplace or you are burning it.

1 quart every 100 miles or less is a lot of oil....

Any other mods? If not its likely the oil control rings....
I have seen a hole in a rotor that was caused by machining......a very small hole through into the inside of the rotor. That caused a huge smoking problem

I have also see people put the oil control rings in the wrong way.. or plates that we resurfaced very rough that eat the oil control rings quickly

 

No mods all stock.............. the clearance between one corner seal and a side was .012. I know this would cause blow by but I didn't think it would cause excessive oil consumption. Rotor seals were put in with notch down facing spring. Rotors looked good no holes. This is very confusing ..............no misfires and the smoking when making sharp turns is CONFUSING !

 

Is it blowing oil into the intake?

if you have excessive blow by and it's pressuring the oil sump area it can blow it up into the intake.

check and see if you can see evidence of that

If it was an oil seal you should get oil smoke all the time

 

If you're burning that much oil, you'd see a lot of blue smoke. The car would literally stink.. Did you pull off the under tray and look to see if you see any build up on it? Have you checked the oil cooler lines for proper connection or rust? I've seen several leak at the fittings due to rust buildup.

 

Yes I have checked the oil cooler lines even flushed out the lines and coolers...... air filter box is oil free............ no leaks at all....... there is oil in the lower intake manifold so I'm thinking sever blow by.......... oil control rings (metal) were in spec... new rubber O-rings were installed during last rebuild (500 miles ago)...... looks this ole man will be pulling the engine out again.