and if it were microscopic it would gush oil like that.

What I don't know is if you can just replace the oil rings with new ones and keep the compression rings in place. Or would you have to replace all the rings and hone the cylinder walls as well?
I am leaning toward replacing all oil rings only. They were most likely bad right out of the factory or the groove in the piston was to tight.

I suggest you talk to an experienced engine re-builder.

 

I'm thinking if he decides to break down the lower end of the engine, it really isn't much of a leap to simply do all of the rings, the bearings, and hone the walls. Assuming proper maintenance that should give the engine an easy one hundred thousand more miles.

 

I would agree that the oil ring might be bad which is why it's burning a lot of oil, but if it were soley the oil ring on the piston, how would the oil move up the cylinder walls against gravity, come out the exhaust port, and coat the inner exhaust manifold tube?

 

How? As the piston moves "up" so too does the oil spray port on the connecting rod. When the piston comes back down the oil rings fail to effectively wipe the cylinder walls clean; when the piston comes back up, for the exhaust stroke, the oil left behind on the walls is pushed out with the exhaust.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

 

That's exactly how it works. One more point: the oil ring is designed to work on the down stroke. In my brother motorcycle the ring had a wedge profile so the ring would scoop up the oil and push it down.
Your ring failed to do that. Now the compression rings ran over the oil on the way down and push most of it up and into the exhaust. The exhaust valve is open on the upstroke only. The inlet valve is open on the down stroke only and closed during the upstroke. Therefore your inlet stays clean and the exhaust is oily.
I understand you have a hard time with this because you already spent money and effort on a new head. But this is the reality. The only way tot get to the rings is to take the bottom end apart.
I would consider putting in a good used engine and then rebuild this one without time pressure.

 

Ok. That's a good suggestion. Does anyone know where to get a good used or rebuilt short block? Called gearheads and they want $3200 for one. Ridiculous. A rebuilt top end only costs $300-500.

 

Try your luck here:
Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market

 

I have a Protege5 with 30k on it that I inherited from my dear old Ma. A real bingo and coffee shop special, she never drove anywhere other than 5 mile trips up and down the local drag of stores.

I just replaced the plugs with Iridium NGKs and all the wires this AM, and I noticed lots of oil in #1 - enough to see my reflection looking through the sparkplug hole. #1 plug had oil all over the bottom of it too. I had driven the car a few hundred feet to get it to a place to work on it immediately prior to doing this. Some of the stuff in #1 could have been fuel, but a good portion was definitely oil. It did not appear to be coming from the top of the plug hole/head area - top of sparkplug was clean, just oil around the threads and nut part, maybe some slightly above. Puff of smoke after plug replacement, too. Never noticed any before. It's quite possible that there was no oil in #1 until I removed the plug. No way to know, as I'm not taking the #1 plug out again.

There are no driveability problems or oil consumption issues that I have noticed as of yet, and I've put 1.5k on it since I got the car. Just making a note of my situation, as it compares pretty closely.

Only reason I was replacing the plugs/wires was that the car is 11 years old, and it has 11 year old car needs in some areas - I just put the third battery in it at only 30k! Gap was way wide on plugs, so I'm glad I did them. The continuous short trips were rough on it, I'm sure. This car will get lots more miles from here on in....

Only incident of note this car has ever had was that about 2k ago, before I got the car, the belt that runs the h20 pump and whatever else it runs broke - from age. Family member was driving it and noticed immediately that temp was going up and pulled over and drove no more. I know what would be needed if they hadn't done that -pull the head and mill it flat. Local decent/trustworthy shop checked it out after this event, didn't find anything amiss, and they immediately replaced the timing belt/h20 pump - a good move if other belts are old enough to degrade. It was also a good move for them to make some money, and a great move for me as I got a car with a brand new timing belt out of the deal.

Car runs great, but it appears to have a similar issue with the oil in #1 - don't know if it means anything. I'll update this if I notice any consumption problems.

If you buy plug wires, make sure the kit has all 4 - the two slave wires and the shorty ones that connect directly to the coils. Many don't. I got an Autolite pro setup (after cancelling a NGK 2 wire order) from Advance Auto for $40 minus discount - they have awesome coupon codes right now if you do the online thing. I got $30 off a $75 order, and they're doing $20 off $50, or a straight 20% right now. I'll spare you the coupon codes, as they'll probably be expired by the time you read this. Anyway, if it's still August '12, look up their codes, it's well worth it.

David