Burning Oil, New Piston/rings?

Hey there, my 99 has started to burn a bit of oil, if i drive normally it is very slow maybe a quart every 1500 miles, however if im out wheelieng with the boys, i can burn through a quart in a night? I have 35000km on the bike. I havent ever adjusted the valves on it since 19000km. Typical wheelies for me are second gear for periods of less than 30 seconds. Does this mean i need new piston and rings? Valve adjustment? Should i just buy a new engine complete off of ebay? My buddy is a subaru mechanic, and doesnt have alot of experience with bikes but he said hed help me if i wanna do the rebuild. Any advice?

Do a compression check and leakdown test. That would be a good starting point.

I got the suff for a compression check, whats a leakdown test?t

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leak-down_tester

hey there thanks for the reply, my bike is coming out of storage tomorrow so ill let you all nkow how it goes. I swapped the piston and rings on my dirkbike before, a 2 stroke single cylinder, is it much harder to do on an r1? Im kind of intimidated due to the valves and timeing etc, is it fairly straightforward, or am i opening a can of worms here and should i just take it in? Should i bore 1mm over? Can improperly adjusted valves cause it to burn oil? Why is it so much worse when i do wheelies?

Hi, I have a 2001 R1 with 32000 miles & I have a problem with the crankcase breather spiting oil into the air cleaner & eventually coming out through the air cleaner vent hose. I was wondering if you're have that symptom also? I think my rings are worn out and causing too much blowby. But I'm not sure, I was also wondering if carbs being out of sync. could cause the extra backpressure & cause the oil to spit out. Mario Z.

Hi, I have a 2001 R1 with 32000 miles & I have a problem with the crankcase breather spiting oil into the air cleaner & eventually coming out through the air cleaner vent hose. I was wondering if you're have that symptom also? I think my rings are worn out and causing too much blowby. But I'm not sure, I was also wondering if carbs being out of sync. could cause the extra backpressure & cause the oil to spit out. Mario Z. 32000 miles is not a lot of miles for an R1, Do you pull wheelies or perhaps overfilled the oil? Either would cause the symptoms you describe.

I thought that I had overfilled with oil so I changed the oil & filter adding 3 qts just to be sure that I wasn't reading the site glass wrong, but still have the problem. What seems wierd to me is that this had happend a couple of times before & it just seemed to fix its self. this thing is driving me crazy would the carbs being off sync cause this? (it happends even if I don't do any wheelies). Thanks, Mario Z

I went ahead & tore into the engine, it was just to much blowby. I got the head off & looks like the pistons have too much slop I can push on the top of the piston with my finger tips & there is quite a bit of movement. I hopefully pop the pistons out tomorrow & I'll have a better idea. The only thing is that I'm begging to think I would have been better off dropping the engine instead of fighting with the head studs & the frame to get the head off. we'll see how the rest goes. Thanks for your input Mario Z.

Also check for valve seats specs...some oil can leak there,but as its been said,yours is low mileage...

I went ahead & tore into the engine, it was just to much blowby. I got the head off & looks like the pistons have too much slop I can push on the top of the piston with my finger tips & there is quite a bit of movement. I hopefully pop the pistons out tomorrow & I'll have a better idea. The only thing is that I'm begging to think I would have been better off dropping the engine instead of fighting with the head studs & the frame to get the head off. we'll see how the rest goes. Thanks for your input Mario Z. wow man , u opened the head while the motor is still there , probably been a bitch huh :sneaky i allready broke 2 allen sockets while triying to open the 8 allen bolts of the head .today i got a new good socket , will try later today:)

I got it back together, haven't taken it out on the road but it sounds like it has alot more hp's after doing a home porting job(valve seats & guides seemed ok, just hand lapped valves) & splitting the head gskt. My actual problem with the compression blow-by was a cracked cyl wall(I replaced the case) & worn rings. I can't wait to take it out on the road to see how the throttle responds, just have to fix a charging problem that I think it's the stator a banged up when removing and I also didn't align the clutch pull rod correctly.

you're actually way better off removing the entire engine because you just about have everything disconected & boy let me tell you, you'll be pouring sweat like never have. Once I seen how easy it was to drop the engine at that point I kicked my self for not doing it before fighting with the head(I lost).

Mine is soooo due for an overall too...i"ll let the dealer operate...cant do it,not equipped for that :( When I crank the throttle on neutral,its shouts out heaps of blue smoke....way due.

If you do go into the engine let me tell you what a diffrence in power porting the head (also using thinner head gasket) made, it feels like a diffrent bike. I just breaking it in but man that throttle responds like it never has, I don't know if its just me being too excited but I can even hear the diffrence in the exhaust (deep, beaffyer sound). I was worried about my home porting job because the only other experience I had was on a Cannondale quad. But luckely everything turned out great so far (that's with the help of this web sites winter project home porting thread).

If you do go into the engine let me tell you what a diffrence in power porting the head (also using thinner head gasket) made, it feels like a diffrent bike. I just breaking it in but man that throttle responds like it never has, I don't know if its just me being too excited but I can even hear the diffrence in the exhaust (deep, beaffyer sound). I was worried about my home porting job because the only other experience I had was on a Cannondale quad. But luckely everything turned out great so far (that's with the help of this web sites winter project home porting thread). what parts of the head gasket did u use? (there are 3) did u split a new gasket or did u use the old one? does somebody know where to get new set of rings and rod bearings? ronayers dont ship internationally i think :(

I only used the center piece from a yamaha gasket (not aftermarket). but I didn't shave the head any because some people where saying to use the 2 outers so it wouldn't be so thin gut I seen others have just used the center with no problem. also this way you don't have to mess with reducing that one oil port & with the outers you do because they don't have the reduction. You can see what I'm talking about just by comparing the outer gasket with the center, there is that one hole in the gasket that way smaller on the center part.

what contribute the causes of a faulty piston?

what contribute the causes of a faulty piston? Several possible things actually: 1-Oil blow-by (oil passing through the rings and into the compression chambers),which can be caused by worn rings (mileage) 2-Same,but caused by lugging the engines repeatedly (engine shakes from too low rpms launches/acceleration) which is kinda hard on cluctch baskets and several other things 3-Same,due to compression in the base,the breather system not being up to the job thus creating pressure in the crankcase (be it a plugged breather system/pinched tube or anything else) Those are a few