2010 125K This has been and excellent car for my daughter. No leaks or issues for the 40K we have owned it. Noticed oil on the drive yesterday and begin to look for the problem. Oil recently changed so first look was plug and filter. Realized leak was coming from top side. Cleaned engine and began to look, Suspected valve cover but can’t find any leak at least the the areas I can feel. Can see oil accumulating where the tranny vent is. Drove it last night a bit and still couldn’t see the source. Fast forward to this morning and drove it about 9 miles to work and it lost at least 2 qts of oil. Literally dripping off the frame. From the front I can see some oil film but can’t pinpoint the source. No indications of a blown head gasket. Oil is fine no water. I am baffled as to what could cause it to blow soooo much oil. Car has not be abused or overheated since we have it. Leak wise it has been one on the tightest engines I have ever owned. Headed for the shop Monday as my schedule won’t allow a big project at this time. Wondering if maybe a sensor or ??? has come loose where I can’t see it. Any insight is appreciated.

 

There are a few places the oil can leak from. Valve cover gasket, cam seal front and rear, Vtec solenoid, crank and cam position sensor, oil pan, timing cover, front and rear main seal.

You can try laying some cardboard below it.. perhaps you will be able to pinpoint the generalized area of where the leak is coming from. Engine bay is tight, any engine work will require removal of the cowl and wipers.

 

Losing quarts in an engine that has so few to lose. Can you get the car up on ramps? I'm curious to see if the oil leak will become visible/consistent when the engine is running.
Last leak I worked on that was that bad was a main seal (trans to torque converter, dont know the proper name) on a transmission just pissing into the bell housing. that was caused by a trans cooler line popping off the radiator, system being run dry. when it was refilled, it shot a solid stream only while running.

Since you're seeing oil on top of the bell housing, you'll likely find your problem up around the valve cover somewhere. Always work from the top down with fluid leaks :}

Take some pics for us! Keep us posted

 

I find a mirror on a stick very helpful finding leaks in spaces with tight access,

 

I have this same leak on my GD3 which has about 280k miles on it. The oil seems to pool on top of transmission where the shift linkages are. The area where the shift fork pokes out of the transmission, and the starter also got covered in oil. The source seems to be near where the "spool valve" aka vtec solenoid is located. I cleaned everything to the best of my ability. Initially I changed the spool valve gasket, followed by the cam thrust cover gasket, with a test drive in between each repair. No leaks while the car is at idle however, it started spewing oil once I drove it around the block.

Now that the area over the transmission is cleaner, it's slightly less vague where the oil leak is coming from. After my last test drive it still appears to be coming from the spool valve assembly. Strangely it doesn't seem to be leaking from where the assembly meets with the cylinder head. Instead it looks like it's coming from the top of the spool valve where the solenoid and oil pressure switch are mounted. I'm going to try and change the O ring for the oil pressure switch and see where that gets me. The next logical step is to replace the entire spool valve assembly. If I still can't stop this leak I will resort to adding dye to the oil and possibly mounting a gopro under the hood pointed at the spool valve. It's a pretty massive leak so I should be able to see something. I'll give us an update on my findings if people wish it.

 

You're getting close!! I'm glad to hear it! and surprised that your engine is leaking so much. I dont really get what happened, unless your engine was overfilled drastically with oil or somethin'.
I'll see if I can remember to pull up the service manual and check for potential leak points in the area.
Please do post updates, you've got a fan right here!

 

Here's a picture of the rear side of the motor. The spool valve is to the left.. Center is rear cam seal.. to the right is the cam position sensor.

 

Those are all potential spots for oil to leak from the seals and O-Rings.

 

Another picture with a wider view of the rear of the engine. With the engine wire harness removed. I hope these help out.

 

Mahalo for the confidence and encouragement. I'm still chasing this leak as of yesterday but I think we're getting closer. Every gasket I've pulled out of the car has been less rubber and more plastic, like crispy plastic. Guess it's starting to show its age. Also the environment here isn't very kind to rubber, things like tires and tool handles are known to just dry out and crack. I've always filled 3.8 quarts (with filter) per the owners manual.

Anyway, I changed the round O-ring between the oil sensor on the top of the spool valve. Luckily a friend stopped by to lend me a second pair of eyes. As I revved the engine up he noticed a small ring of oil forming around the actual solenoid next to the oil sensor (area circled in the photo) this is consistent with the fresh oil I pointed out in the photo (taken after one of my test drives the day before). Initially I was having trouble imagining the oil getting into that spot if it were leaking from the gasket area where spool valve meets the head. A leak between the solenoid and spool valve makes much more sense.

I'm not sure if vtec will engage if the engine is free revving vs under load (maybe somebody can chime in on this matter). The leak while I revved the engine seemed concerning, but not at a rate which would equate to covering that side of the engine in pools of oil. In the second photo, taken immediately after having replaced the cam thrust cover seal, I noticed a few drops of oil on the radiator hose. This is what initially led me back to the spool valve. But seeing how far the oil traveled, it must be spraying out when vtec is on. I'm not sure if if whatever seals the solenoid on the spool valve assembly is replaceable so I'll order a new oem spool valve and pray that solves this issue. Will update when I replace spool valve. Mahalo friends.


Friend noticed leak from circled area. Fresh oil where arrow is pointing.

Drops of fresh oil on the radiator hose. Spool valve can be seen at top of photo. Hopefully thats where it came from.

 

I just replaced the entire spool valve/vtec solenoid. Test drove it around the block pretty hard. Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, I was hoping to see less oil. Little did I know the entire front driver side would be covered in coolant. Turned out my radiator cracked during the test drive, it looked like it may have had a small leak for a long time that had gone unnoticed. The car was in fact eating a bit of coolant which I would top off every month or so. While trying to remove my radiator the entire top inlet broke right off, the plastic was super crispy and appeared to have some cracks that were a few millimeters from leaking.

Contrary to some youtube videos, I found that I could easily remove the radiator without messing with the AC condenser. With the airbox out, I removed both fans and slid the radiator out the bottom between engine and radiator support. It was surprisingly easy and took just over an hour. I'll update on the oil leak once I get a new radiator and the car is up and running again.

 

Nice job man!!

I would say 99% of youtube videos show improper procedures regarding working on cars.. A lot of videos I've seen people doing suspension work always unbolt or loosen the upper or lower control arms that control the alignment bolts thus ruining their cars alignment when there is no need for that.. And then they tighten the control arm bolts without properly normalizing the suspension.

There should be no need to touch the AC condenser when removing the radiator. Just like how you did it. Remove air box, Remove fans and hoses.. and radiator out.

 

Mahalo for the kind words my friend, I appreciate it.

It's been a little over 3 weeks now but I finally have a new radiator and a little time to work on it. I opted for a Denso radiator from Amazon, I had a hard time finding a manual radiator so I ended up buying one for an auto, which has a transmission cooler built into it. No big deal though, I just removed the piping protruding from the radiator and plugged the holes. Anyway, I've replaced all the hoses and checked both fans while I had everything out.

Getting back to the oil leak, I've been driving the car for 4 days now while being attentive to any oil under the car. Although I have a small drip (1 drop while the car is parked overnight) I'm hoping this is just residual oil from before I replaced the entire spool valve. Examining inside the engine bay, I have no pooling of oil on the transmission or obvious oil spray around the spool valve area. I'll keep an eye on it out of paranoia, but hopefully I've found the issue. Just to reiterate my findings, it seems the spool valve can develop a pretty heavy leak while in vtec from between the solenoid and main spool valve body. If you have a big leak that coats the front and transmission side of the motor with oil, its absolutely worth checking this spot.

A mechanic friend of mine said it is possible to remove the solenoid with a special socket, however, I've never seen that particular gasket for sale so I ended up replacing the entire spool valve assembly. I'll try to remove the solenoid later and post some pictures of what it looks like inside, maybe do a little deeper digging to see if I can find that gasket somewhere. I hope this has been useful to other Fit owners in the future. Take care folks. Aloha

 

There are two seals that are replaceable on the spool valve.

O Ring 13x1.5 part number 91319-PAA-A01
Filter Assembly, Spool Valve part number 15825-RB0-003

 

Ah yes I definitely changed both of those. I don't think Honda wanted us to take the solenoid off the spool valve since they used oddball fasteners. But I'm curious what it looks like in there.

 

I'm having the same problem. Massive oil leak and all indicators point to the VTEC solenoid. It only leaks when driving. And even oil pooling up on the top of the VTEC solenoid and the front by the mounting bolts like shown in your pictures. The thing is I completely replaced the whole valve and the leak didn't even slow down.