Honda K24 Valvetrain, 135K miles

This was my 2010 K24 at 180K miles.

3qts/5k consumption. Burned exhaust valve due to carbon.

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I was at the point of just dumping in whatever oil and changing the filter every 6 months.

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Ironically, a new valve and valve guide seals stopped the oil consumption. Was down to ½qt/5k OCI. Drove it for another 2 years (26k miles).
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Then this happened.... Several of us here know the feeling.........
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When you say it burned the exhaust valve "due to carbon", how do you know? Couldn't it have been due to a too-tight valve clearance? Did you do any valve clearance adjustments prior to this event?
Yes, valves were adjusted at 75k and again at 150k. This thing would carbon foul the plug in cyl 2 every 30k miles. Hard carbon on electrode.

Here is a pic of the carbon which held the valve open.
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It was like a piece of weld spatter on the seat.
 
This was my 2010 K24 at 180K miles.

3qts/5k consumption. Burned exhaust valve due to carbon.

View attachment 275062

I was at the point of just dumping in whatever oil and changing the filter every 6 months.

View attachment 275063

View attachment 275064


Ironically, a new valve and valve guide seals stopped the oil consumption. Was down to ½qt/5k OCI. Drove it for another 2 years (26k miles).
View attachment 275065
Then this happened.... Several of us here know the feeling.........
View attachment 275066
Was that car yours the whole time? No offense intended, but it looks like that car was rode hard and put away wet, explaining the rust and maybe the valve situation.
 
I strongly suspect that on these newer (ish) Hondas--and perhaps other engines- a clean overhead tells you nothing about the parts of the engine that are most at risk.

Think back to that teardown video of the K20C4 accord turbo engine that was immaculately clean at 92K miles everywhere-- except the one place that it mattered: the ring pack. Stuck oil ring, high oil consumption, engine was scrapped. And in the process, all that cleanliness and low wear elsewhere in the engine was for naught.

What good is it to have little to no cam wear if your guzzling oil due to a stuck ring?

This is in my mind as I consider the relative value of oils which are known to run very clean. I'm thinking that cleanliness and deposit prevention and removal is arguably now the single most consequential discriminator between oils. Lots of oils can lubricate sufficiently. They can all prevent corrosion very well and all will cool the engine about equally effectively. We've seen engines deliver great UOAs on 20 grade, 30 grade and 40 grade. Even viscosity isn't much of a discriminator in determining engine life.

But the ability to prevent and remove deposits is quite starkly different between oils, and I think we should be placing more emphasis on these attributes (and related ones like volatility) than most other attributes-- perhaps even something like viscosity.
 
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This was my 2010 K24 at 180K miles.

3qts/5k consumption. Burned exhaust valve due to carbon.

View attachment 275062

I was at the point of just dumping in whatever oil and changing the filter every 6 months.

View attachment 275063

View attachment 275064


Ironically, a new valve and valve guide seals stopped the oil consumption. Was down to ½qt/5k OCI. Drove it for another 2 years (26k miles).
View attachment 275065
Then this happened.... Several of us here know the feeling.........
View attachment 275066
how bad is pulling the head off of a K24? never done it but i’m fairly certain my 400k mile K24 has bad valve seals and it burns quite a large amount of oil. i’m invested in running it until it blows but i want to replace the valve seals.
 
how bad is pulling the head off of a K24? never done it but i’m fairly certain my 400k mile K24 has bad valve seals and it burns quite a large amount of oil. i’m invested in running it until it blows but i want to replace the valve seals.
Depends on your mechanical knowledge. Mine was in a CR-V. No special tools needed and I did it in my garage with a floor jack. Best part was the integral exhaust manifold so all 4 studs came right out! The head bolts are reusable, and I used FelPro top end gasket set. Only needed the V-TEC actuator seals from the dealer.

The timing cover is just on with RTV and my favorite is Permatex ultra Black. My timing chain was at about 70% stretch, and I just put it back in. It was a budget repair, due to tye rust underneath. Planned on selling it soon, but ended up being recalled and Honda bought it back. So it was a big win.
 
Depends on your mechanical knowledge. Mine was in a CR-V. No special tools needed and I did it in my garage with a floor jack. Best part was the integral exhaust manifold so all 4 studs came right out! The head bolts are reusable, and I used FelPro top end gasket set. Only needed the V-TEC actuator seals from the dealer.

The timing cover is just on with RTV and my favorite is Permatex ultra Black. My timing chain was at about 70% stretch, and I just put it back in. It was a budget repair, due to tye rust underneath. Planned on selling it soon, but ended up being recalled and Honda bought it back. So it was a big win.
former diesel mechanic, now engineer and part time fleet mechanic.
 
Was that car yours the whole time? No offense intended, but it looks like that car was rode hard and put away wet, explaining the rust and maybe the valve situation.
We bought it at 60k and 5 years old. It was well taken care of and the interior looked like new when it fell apart. I live in northern Maine where we have 6 months of snow and salt. Vehicles rust away here.

Does that valve train look bad to you for 175k miles?
 
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I'm not accusing, just asking. Does using 3 qts every 5k miles cause piston deposits like that? The tops of those pistons are ugly.

Since we're showing other K24s, mine at 200K when I last adjusted the valves. A lifetime of Castrol Black Bottle 5W-30 then "German Castrol" 0W-30 for the last 100K miles. It has 262K on it now.

Scott

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This was my 2010 K24 at 180K miles.

3qts/5k consumption. Burned exhaust valve due to carbon.

View attachment 275062

I was at the point of just dumping in whatever oil and changing the filter every 6 months.

View attachment 275063

View attachment 275064


Ironically, a new valve and valve guide seals stopped the oil consumption. Was down to ½qt/5k OCI. Drove it for another 2 years (26k miles).
View attachment 275065
Then this happened.... Several of us here know the feeling.........
View attachment 275066
That’s what happens when you never do a valve adjustment
 
It consumed a lot of oil. Honestly, the dealer told me it was a piston/ring issue and many CR-Vs etc were affected by oil consumption. Honda recalled the excessive ones up to 125k miles and more than a qt in 800 mile consumption. Ours was at a qt in 1000 miles at 125k. It went up dramatically after that.

Due to its age, i just kept dumping oil in it and didn't want to pull it all apart to re-ring and possible piston replacement. Until this happened.

The Pic was before I cleaned everything up. Keep in mind I put 1 (used) exhaust valve in it, and replaced valve guide seals as they came with the FelPro kit I bought. Oil consumption went to well under 1qt/5000 miles after that. I never touched the bottom end, other than cleaning the piston tops.
 
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