Been a long time since an update. I also had basically stopped driving the car for almost 3 months earlier this year. It had developed an oil leak and even on short drives, the car would have smoke coming out the back of the engine bay. Obviously, this meant that somewhere oil was dripping on some part of the exhaust.

Car got awful dirty just sitting.


Removed the engine cover for easier access.




All open now.


Removed the rear diffuser to get better access below.


Borrowed a horoscope from a friend to try and get a better look in tight spots. I need to buy one of these eventually but hopefully these days someone makes one with a little higher resolution.


This is what I believe is where my rear valve cover leak is






The problem is I do not believe that is the only leak the car has. There is just too much oil in other places to all having been coming from there. The car had a very slight oil leak from the oil pan when I bought it. The leak was not near the exhaust and it was so minor at the time that I could just wipe the seepage off when I did an oil change and once in between changes and everything was fine. It wasn't worth the time to drop the front header. It might now be time to tackle that next. I believe this is coming down from the oil pan.






















A third leak I believe is coming from the cam seals for the cam gears. Oil is leaking out fo the plastic timing belt cover and then down the oil cooler line.




















I cleaned up everything as much as possible to try and help determine the other leaks.










Oil ended up leaking again from the cam seal/timing belt side.






So with that, it was time to at least replace the rear bank valve cover gasket and see if that fixed some things. I knew there was only a little space in the back but damn is the rear bank a pain to work on.


Cover off. It looks nice and clean.
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The engine looks clean as well.






Timing belt looks good as well which was nice to be able to get a peek at since it was suggested by me from a reputable shop that with as low miles as the car has on it that I should go to 10 years instead of changing it right now.


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New gasket with Honda bond prior to reinstall. Many choice words were spoke during the resinstall and it took me 8 tries to finally get the cover back on and in place.


So far so good and no leak on the cam plug side.



So once I put the car back together and drove it in small 5 mile drives I had smoke for about 15miles. After that, it was gone. I figured this was the residual oil that has built up in the heat shield of the rear manifold. Being overly cautious I then proceeded on three more 5 mile increment drives and stopping to check for smoke. Then increased to 10 miles, 15 miles, and 20 miles. After that, I figured for the time being at least I was good. Not sure if it is the valve cover completely or cause I cleaned up all the oil. I still have a leak from the oil pan and a little bit of oil again coming from the timing belt cover area. They seem to be slow and if I keep up with keeping them clean they should not cause me issues of smoking again hopefully. They do not seem to be leaking fast enough at all to cause an issue with my oil level either. This past Friday I took the car from Charlotte to Asheville and back with no issues. It was nice to do a day trip in it again.

Shot from before the car started smoking.


First longerish drive after the repair. Stopped at my dads place.


​​​​​​​Asheville road trip from Friday.
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