Bought the car 2 months ago. It was sitting in a garage when I got it with 120km on it. 2 weeks of driving, the cooling fan relay gave out, car overheated and blew the head gasket. The first mechanic took the cylinder for resurfacing and did the top engine rebuild but after a week of driving, smoke started coming out the tail pipe. I called him and told him about the smoke but he refused to take it as a back job. Long story short, conversation didn’t and well and I had to look for another shop. Took me one week to bring the car to another shop, at this point the smoke got worse and when I checked the oil level, it’s almost empty. Mechanic no.2 checked the car, open the valve cover and it turned out mechanic no.1 didn’t change the valvle stem seals and the head wasn’t resurfaced, it was sanded! BUT, he said the way the car was smoking and burned through the oil, it’s not just the valve seals or the cylinder head but the piston rings that we have to replace as well. I said ok, full engine rebuild. I got the car for cheap and have plans for it, I was going to rebuild it anyway. They brought the engine to the machine shop, resurfaced the head, honed the cylinders, installed bigger(0.25) piston rings, main bearing replaced, washers, everything. After all that, car still blows smoke. Not as bad as before, but still does. So he took the engine apart again, crack tested the head, crack tested the block, everything’s good, but now he’s saying we need to get everything back to standard and told me the B20 block needs resleeving. I’m not a mechanic, I know very little about cars, but something tells me both these guys don’t know shit about what they’re doing either, so I’m taking the car back tomorrow.

Few things I noticed about the car after we replaced the piston rings is that, when at idle the engine runs smooth but will vibrate as if the rpm is dropping, just for a few seconds, then it will run smooth again, it does this repeatedly, I didn’t notice anything while test driving, everything’s smooth. He told me it just needs some tuning but I have no idea why he wouldn’t do it right after an engine rebuild. Second thing I noticed is when he took the engine apart the second time, there was oil in the intake manifold, intake gasket was leaking, and the intake ports in the cylinder head also had oil, mostly on the number 2 and 3 ports. Not sure if it was engine oil or gasoline but I asked him about it and he said it has nothing to do with the smoke.

Since I’m taking the car back and it’ll probably take me weeks before I find another shop to look at it, I might as well try to diagnose it myself with the help of the internet. Nothing serious, just simple stuff that I can check, things that these mechanics might have overlooked. Hope you guys can give me a lists or something. Thank you ✌️