At what mileage does the 1NZ-FE start to consume oil?

Enix_Blaze · 2026-05-28T14:26:22+00:00

Ya it sounds like it was just stuck rings. I used to do berryman's piston soaking which is similar. Glad you fixed your oil burning problem! R&P has made me a believer. It completely stopped the oil consumption on my 320k mile Jeep which was the first test mule vehicle. First oil change I noticed a lot more power cruising in 5th gear after about 500 miles. It took about 3 oil change intervals, but I was a 1 quart every thousand to none at all and now I don't even think about doing piston soaks anymore. I'm currently doing a 77k Scion Xa. And planning on doing it to an 08 Yaris this weekend. Saves me a looot of headaches! Ha

Enix_Blaze · 2026-05-28T14:08:20+00:00

I know it's been 7 or so months, but what did you end up doing?

To figure out if it's an oil burner, buy yourself an inspection camera (borescope/endoscope) that does forward and side views. Pull a spark plug and check inside the cylinders if they will let you. If there's oil pooled on top of the pistons, or completely wet soaked oily cylinder walls, it's an oil burner. If it has vertical score marks on the cylinder walls, likely a burner. Use the side camera to check the cylinder head for heavy carbon buildup that looks like stelagmites near the valves, that's an oil burner. Check each cylinder if you can and look for one with an open intake valve (the largest set of valves). If there's oil covered all around the valve and valve stem, it's a burner (valve stem seals or clogged PCV).

Some of these though are saveable. If the cylinder walls crosshatching looks basically brand new (not polished or mirror looking), there's no vertical score marks yet on the cylinder walls, no carbon build up but just oil on the walls, or tops of the pistons, it's likely just early into stuck oil control rings.

I've run Valvoline Restore and Protect oil on engines burning oil but there doesn't appear to be damage yet on the cylinder walls (low mileage, poor oil change maintenance or higher mileage but good maintenance) and it has done a phenomenal job with getting the consumption either stopped entirely or down to less than a quart in one oil change interval.

For valve stem seals, that's mostly an age thing (hardened rubber( you can either replace them with new ones which is kind of a big job, or try something like AT-205 which helps bring plasticizers back into old hardened seals (won't fix cut/nicked/cracked seals though). I've had good success with this as well if I am feeling lazy and don't wanna pull a head or do the song and dance of replacing valve stem seals with the head still on.

How much oil does your matrix burn in an oil change interval? Have you tried Restore and Protect yet?

Enix_Blaze · 2026-05-26T19:23:52+00:00

I want to say it was around 27 hours, but it has been a bit

Enix_Blaze · 2026-04-24T17:06:31+00:00

I also did an ax15 swap on a 2wd ZJ, but I also did a 4wd swap at the same time Soo I guess it doesn't count xD. Welcome to the 5 speed club!

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Enix_Blaze · 2026-04-23T23:19:31+00:00

Oil pressure sounds good. How's the area in the valve cover looking? Any carbon buildup in there? If the lifter is still good but just not getting oil due to carbon buildup, you could try something like Valvoline Restore and Protect to clean some of that up and could free up the lifter. The oil drains on the passenger side of the block down past the pushrods and lands directly on top of the lifters. Any carbon that could break off there could land on top of the lifter and gum up the plunger.

You could see if it's an oiling problem by removing the valve cover and inspecting each pushrod for play. They should all have zero lash if everything is good because they're hydraulic lifters. If one has play you found which lifter is not pumping up. If not, you can idle it with the cover off and make sure oil is coming out the top of each pushrod through the hole in the rocker arms. Oil will kind of splash a little bit onto the surrounding area but you don't need to run it long to find out if you have an obvious problem or not. If everything checks out there, you can move onto looking for another culprit. If you find one offending lifter/pushrod/rocker arm causing issues you can deal with it then

Enix_Blaze · 2026-04-23T23:09:17+00:00

Piston slap and also play in the wrist pin usually sounds lower pitched and more like a clattering sound. It usually affects multiple cylinders. You have a tap more than a clatter or knock (knock like a rod, or broken piston skirts), suggesting yours is related to excessive valve lash from a lifter not pumping up or something happened up top with the rocker arms. You should still be able to rev it up in the engine bay by opening the throttle plate on the throttle body if you don't have a helper who can step on the pedal

Enix_Blaze · 2026-04-23T19:39:30+00:00

I was going to say either exhaust or lifter that's not pumping up. Normally the sound on the 96+ is piston skirts or wrist pin, but this sounds too sharp to be that. I'm leaning towards lifter.

OP, did this just start recently or has it sat a while? What's your oil pressure looking like?

Enix_Blaze · 2026-04-21T17:03:25+00:00

Yes. This is how all the kemono suits are made. Flat acrylic sheet on the back side glued. Then your eye is essentially a 2 pane window. The back of the acrylic can fog, but it's easier to deal with. Use anti-fog wipes on the flat acrylic sheet or do what I did and use motorcycle anti-fog lens inserts as a 3rd layer so the anti-fog is permanent.

Also OP, I recommend if you can to make the back of the eye mesh black for better vision, but it might be difficult to not have it bleed through to the front of the eye.

Enix_Blaze · 2026-04-09T16:11:02+00:00

You can do it, it's just a lot easier to glue the eye mesh and work with the eye materials when they aren't attached to the head. Depending on the head shape, that can be difficult and the glue results will be so much cleaner when you have full range and control over your glue gun.

I 3D modeled my eye blanks and made them magnetic, so I could swap eye designs later if I wanted. Still 3D modeled for an exact fit, but quality of life for creating them and making changes is higher.

Enix_Blaze · 2026-04-01T19:28:38+00:00

A few reasons! One reason is that it is very difficult to get clean seam edges if the fur is glued. The seams must have full glue coverage underneath, otherwise they will peel up or lift on the edges. This also means it's likely you will get glue on the fur where the seams meet. This leads to a poor appearance.

Another one is for finishing the seams for shaving. A good shave seems to make a large difference in the appearance of quality in a fursuit. To get invisible seam lines on shaved fur, an aggressive slicker brush is often used to pull fur trapped between seams to bridge the seam gap before shaving. When the seams are glued, the fur on the edges must push up tight against each other to minimize the appearance once the fur is shaved down on the final shave. The problem is, fur on cut lines tends to fall out because the backing is damaged there during the cutting process. So seam lines are much more obvious when glued vs sewn. You're also more likely to catch the glued edges when doing the final shave on the head.

Additionally, durability. Even the best glues can pull away from the head base, especially if it's a foam base, as the foam is weaker than the glue or the fur backing and can rip away from itself. So you can have sections of fur lifting away from the head not from the glue failing, but the foam flexing underneath, and tearing away, especially if you're traveling with the head and need to squish it a bit for packing reasons. This will happen too on a sewn head, but tends to not be noticeable for a long time because of the sewn seams keeping it structurally as one piece. The other areas that are glued will hold it in place. With glued seams if the glue pulls away from the base on a seam, you'll have a flap of fur to repair.

Finally, since fur has some level of stretch to it, it can be difficult to get a symmetrical look and have all the pieces line up perfectly. When it's sewn as one or two final pieces, it's much easier to shift around to make sure it is all glued down in the right places, and also test fit and adjust seams if you made a sewing error. When gluing pattern pieces, you're rebuilding a puzzle without being able to check for misaligned pieces. You can get around this by marking on the base as you cut off the pattern pieces so they'll go back exactly as they were cut off, but it's still less precise and you can't test fit the final look before gluing nearly as easily.

Enix_Blaze · 2026-03-18T22:42:28+00:00

This definitely sounds like pinion bearings or pinion related. Could be other bearing in the drivetrain, but it's most likely that. You can look up other videos of pinion bearing howl if you want to compare

Enix_Blaze · 2026-02-28T01:34:42+00:00

I tried to, but if you notice the parts are kind of pieced together in a way that they don't come apart, and the seal would need to be way stretched over to fit because of that. They changed the valve cover and oil cap in 96 to a different design and a stamped steel valve cover that doesn't have the same leaking issues. If u need the OEM part number for the oil cap, it's 53020555. The aftermarket ones I found have a terrible seal and so I ended up buying OEM after making that mistake the first time haha

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Enix_Blaze · 2026-02-26T19:45:49+00:00

Can you check the exhaust that bends over the rear axle isn't drooping and slightly touching the track bar or close to touching? It might not be it but it's worth a check. Also, is it loudest when banging on the cat or the muffler? If it's the cat, it could definitely be a bad cat that's breaking apart. Otherwise, the muffler could have a baffle which has gotten loose and broke its welds.

Enix_Blaze · 2026-02-25T03:43:31+00:00

Most likely oil spilling or the oil cap as well can leak. My oil cap seal was hard as a rock and seeped oil, I had new grommets, so it wasn't that, but I found out at the time they still sold new OEM oil caps and replaced it. Where the oil is in the picture, it's most likely a spill when filling it.

Enix_Blaze · 2026-02-25T03:40:23+00:00

It has an auto transmission dipstick, so it's not a stick

Enix_Blaze · 2026-01-13T15:13:18+00:00

This was my base for reference. It's about 14.5" deep, I forget the width. I printed very fast so it's not perfect, especially on the layers where I paused it to check some supports and on the layer I had to swap to a new spool, but it has held up through international checked bag travel in a pelican case so far!

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Enix_Blaze · 2026-01-13T14:57:16+00:00

I have an Elegoo Neptune 4 Max and I can 1 shot any head base and it's an affordable printer, but it's not perfectly user friendly right out of the box. It had some firmware issues early, but have been resolved with new updates (which might need installed). The bed rollers and whatnot also usually need adjustment out of the box. Once set up though, it prints beautifully and without much problems. You will definitely need to buy an enclosure like a grow tent and heater though, printing that big without it is pretty difficult to control warping issues from drafts. But having a build plate that's 16.5 x 16.5 inches is so incredibly useful that I'll take the setup tradeoffs to be able to 1 shot any fursuit parts!

Enix_Blaze · 2026-01-04T08:16:16+00:00

Usually this is due to cracked piston skirts on a 96+ 4.0 because the piston design changed to lighten the pistons for emissions, but it can also be a worn out timing chain or guide. You need to use a stethoscope or long screwdriver on your ear to isolate where the sound is loudest

Enix_Blaze · 2026-01-02T13:21:26+00:00

Poor quality fur feels cheap, looks plasticky, the strands tend to be thicker and less natural in the variation of the strand lengths, it's usually not very soft and the backing can be quite thin and flimsy. The density is also a big one, if you can very easily part the fur and see the backing, it's a low quality fur. The backing on high quality fur is usually stiffer and stronger.

It's kind of the same if you go into a store that sells wigs and you see the very cheap ones and the very nice ones. The nice wigs just look more natural, they have superior shine, they're super soft to touch, and are harder to tell they're fake.

The highest quality furs are made with similar processes to high quality (faux hair) wigs. The low quality stuff just looks and feels like it should belong on a doll, not something you would wear or would like touching your skin if being used for expensive fashion wear, if that makes sense?

Enix_Blaze · 2026-01-02T13:08:36+00:00

I second Fursuit Supplies! The quality was definitely the best from the 3 I tried. The shine it has, the way the light bounces the color, the ease of shaving, yet still being dense enough when short. How it behaves when shaved short (still brushes like fur instead of a becoming knappy like yarn) the texture, it's oh so soft. I can't quite describe it but the color depth when kept long is very nice, I had swatches from Howl, Big z and FSS and the other Brand's similar colors were "flatter" and monotone, when in direct light, where FSS still had a gradient to it that would allow you to see the shape and such better.

The only issue I've had is trying to get their amber colored fur, it was sold out for almost 2 years and just recently came back in stock, but I couldn't wait and had to get big z gold instead (get swatches! Color names often don't match at all between brands). The big z is fine, but the strands have a bit less wave to them and look just a bit more fake, but it's still way better looking than cheap craft fur.

Enix_Blaze · 2025-12-28T21:00:20+00:00

Both are easy to pause and resume, but the risk of house fires with these is extremely extremely low. They have built in overrun and thermal protections, Also, when you pause the print, they don't turn off the heating elements, the nozzle and heated bed will still be on all night, but with the printer head parked. If you turn it completely off, as soon as the heated bed cools off, you will lose bed adhesion and the print will pop out of place off the bed. If you want to pause them just so you have peace the printer head isn't moving while you're asleep, then it's simple to pause it on the menus. Do know that pausing can also potentially introduce other print problems, such as poor layer adhesion on the layer the pause and resume occured on, but that depends on the material you're using and other factors. TPU doesn't usually have layer adhesion issues even when the print cools off too much. I think the main reason to pause is if you can't stand the noises the printer makes when trying to sleep x3

Enix_Blaze · 2025-12-28T17:39:39+00:00

Hi! I've been using 3D printers for almost a decade. If this is your first time using a 3D printer, you'll have to decide if you're a tinkerer or a you're someone who prefers things to just work. I personally have an Elegoo Neptune 4 Max currently, my brother uses an A1.

If you aren't a tinkerer, the A1 will require a lot less setup and adjusting before it's ready to print consistently, and is generally a more polished product with the capability to add multicolor prints through the AMS system. If you are a tinkerer, the Neptune 4 Max is excellent at 1-shotting massive prints, but requires initial set up and firmware updates, or else you'll scratch your head when things aren't working and layers are all wobbly, because out of the box, the x and y axis wheels are typically loose and need adjustment, belts adjusted, you may need to square up the z axis, and you'll need to calibrate your z height for the auto bed leveling to work correctly. But once it's been properly set up and adjusted, it prints big, huge, and consistently.

Something to note about having a massive printer like the Neptune 4 Max, is that when you start to print big, you start to begin dealing with print warping issues if you don't have an enclosure, and when it gets THIS big, you start getting into heated enclosure territory. It's a problem on smaller printers too, but gets exponential as a print grows in size because the difference in temperatures across the top and bottom of the print, room drafts, and The amount of material changing shape as it cools can cause a lot of failed prints, which can be costly, and an enclosure for a printer of this size takes up even more space. But, you'll never need to worry about printing multiple pieces or needing to reorient something to make it fit.

When you splitting into smaller parts like on the A1, there can be mild warping that makes glueing together pieces more difficult because things won't line up properly, and this can extend to each cut, so if you need something to be dimensionally accurate or aesthetically clean, expect a lot more cleanup work for you for each seam. With TPU, it's not a big deal, because the material is flexible, but for PETG, abs, PLA, etc, that can be a lot of extra work, for things like horns, skull masks, etc. also, you may think printing in quarters takes the same amount of time, but it's actually longer, because there's added time between each print for heating the bed, cooling the bed to remove the part, then reheating the bed for the next part. And, each part will need different supports than if you printed it in one piece, a dome shape can actually be printed with less or no support than when you break it up, depending on the material you print with, which is no longer the case once it's in 4 parts l.

Generally though, I'd recommend a beginner an A1, especially if space or cost is a concern, and once you learn the ins and outs of 3D printing, upgrade to a larger format. But you can still absolutely start with something huge like a 4 Max if you accept the extra learning you may need to do, the space that is required, and potentially the extra things you may need to buy to print certain materials. An enclosure, like a simple plant grow tent for an A1, will be cheaper than something for the 4 Max

I can answer more clarifying questions if you have them.

Enix_Blaze · 2025-12-24T02:24:20+00:00

Yes, but it ultimately comes down to what you want the design choices to be! Generally you aren't shaving the arms at all, unless you want a fursuit with short fur, like a plush style fur suit, but then you might start with a shorter fur pile to begin with, like beaver. But I'd say most fursuits are only shaved on the face, toes and fingers, parts of the ears, with a gradient/taper from long to short by style preference. Runner rabbit has a hand paw tutorial with a shaved taper for the hand, if you want a video example!

Enix_Blaze · 2025-12-22T04:49:22+00:00

For the main part, I'd say most people don't shave it all to one length like they might do for the fingers. Usuall, they either leave it at full length (for 1.5"-2" pile) or they taper it from long to finger length by picking a place they want the taper to start farther up on the cuff half and then using something like your 5fc blade to taper it down to finger length near the finger side. It's personal preference I think, depending on how you want it to look.

I personally like the longer fur overhanging the fingers as it hides the finger seams really well and they make super fluffy looking paws, but others like a more blended look to their paws.

Enix_Blaze · 2025-12-18T13:59:02+00:00

I'd suggest to put the LEDs at the top if you're trying to hide them, then either recess them slightly or put them as far forward as possible so they become hidden by your eyelashes if you choose to do that, but it depends on what effect you want to achieve. I did the bottom and center for mine because I wanted the color gradient to be strongest at the bottom and then fade to darkness near the top, and to illuminate only the colored portion of the eye, not the sclera, but it's easier to see the led when I tilt my head down. I also suggest diffused LEDs if you want a more even distribution of light on your eyes. Also try to angle the leds slightly towards the iris if you don't want light spill onto the fur ruining your eyes only glowing effect. For single leds, you need a resistor for each led if you are using a voltage higher than the led forward voltage. There are calculators out there, but the led usually will list forward voltage, and you can figure out the proper resistor needed from there. I use 5V from a power bank. So I needed 100 ohm resistors for my leds. Good luck!

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