My B6T-swapped Festiva has been parked since May. Continuous thick smelly blue smoke which has popped up out of nowhere prevents me from driving it again, and I'm pretty frustrated. It's the worst smoke I've ever seen... almost as if the motor had a mixture of motor oil and Seafoam for fuel. I checked the turbo/intake/intercooler, changed the PCV valve and hoses, and did an oil change with some higher quality 10W30 oil. This motor build only has 18 months and maybe 5,000 miles on it.

130/120/125/135 dry compression and 170/175/150/180 wet compression. Cylinder four's piston has a puddle of oil on it, which makes sense given the two intake valves on cylinder four are drowning in oil with the way the car has been sitting in my driveway.

Now given the low compression result is not an isolated incident (it has been this low sadly since the motor was built), I'm assuming the blue smoke can be attributed directly to the cylinder four intake-side valve stem seals.

I tried ordering valve stem seals, but the Beck Arnley part number Rock Auto provided is way too large for my valve guides. I'm going to guess that they are the same between the Miata 1.6L and my 323GT 1.6L, so does anybody know which valve stem seals I should try next?

 

Factory Mazda seals

 

Supertech Valve Seal Miata = $12.49



Also: Go make an intro thread here: Meet and Greet - Miata Turbo Forum and tell us about this marvelous B6T smoke machine

 

Thanks gents! I'll make an intro once I get the parts in and give her a much needed bath!

 

If the bottom end picks up 40psi+ of compression by adding oil, you're not going to fix anything with a set of valve seals.

 

 

Okay... in that case, I may just throw in a Miata shortblock once I read up on the compatibility between the 323GT and the Miata B6. I have one sitting in a friend's garage for this exact reason.

 

Did another compression test today just to see what's going on. 150/145/140/150 dry. Didn't have time for a wet test unfortunately. Either way, that's 20psi higher than before... all I did was take out the camshafts and lifters before putting them back in after finding out that my valve stem seals were the wrong size.

 

 

Intake manifold gasket was leaking. Head's coming off to clean up the valves, change the stem seals, and do the head gasket for good measure.

 

Might want to change the block or at least re-hone and re-ring, since that's what's actually causing your problem.

 

Yeah... I think I'm going to toss in that Miata shortblock truth be told. This isn't my daily driver... so I'm in no huge rush to get it buttoned back up.