Was driving my car last night to go pick up a friend from a bar. Got to the bar after some spirited backroad driving and picked her up. Durring the spirited driving, I stayed out of Vtec for the most part. I was shifting at 5k every time, and only got into vtec once. When vtec was engaged, it didnt sound “smooth”. I kinda sounded like it didnt know if it wanted to be on or not. I assumed it was due to low oil/ lower oil pressure. Its done it to be before once and I changed the oil the next day and it was fine.
After picking her up from the bar, we had to drive 3 miles down the road to go get her car. Pulled into the parking lot and shut my car off but left my lights on. I was talking to her for ~30 seconds when I looked at the front of the car and see a little smoke coming out. I poped the hood and you can smell burning oil and its smoking from the rear of the motor under the intake manifold. I grabed a flashlight and looked around and there was oil EVERYWHERE under the IM. Pushed the car into a spot, and left it there.
Went back this morning to take a look at it. I jacked up the car and took the drivers side wheel off. Crawled under and there was a coating of oil on everything. Cleaned it up a little, got more oil, and limped it back home. On the way home there was no noises, no issues, nothing.
I searched on Honda-tech and so far the list of things that people have had oil leaking related problems are:
Crankcase seal
Oil sending unit
Oil Cooler
Oil Pressure switch
Out of all the things on the list, Im leaning towards the Oil cooler and the Oil pressure switch. Ive always had an issue with leaking a little oil though too. Whenever I change my oil, theres always a drop or two just sitting on the halfshaft. Ive never had any oil on my driveway, it just chills on the halfshaft and sometimes you can see a couple drops just randomly on the motor. I had droped my car off for other things at Hybrid and had them look for the leak, and they said that everything was ok. This was about 2 weeks ago.
Main question is:
How do I test any of the above listed possibilities? I dont want to start replacing stuff if i dont have to. I really think that its the oil cooler because When I was under there, It seemed to be dripping from the center of the rear of the motor.
It also take a little while (~minute) for it to start leaking which makes me think that it has to do with oil passages because it takes a little while for the oil to circulate(sp?)
Any Ideas? How can I test to see if its anything on the above list?
BTW: Motor is a 2000 h22 with 37K on it.
