Jonathan

Greetings to the wealth of Honda knowledge! ;-)

I have the aforementioned car; B21A1 engine, 5spd. It burns oil like a
2-cycle engine. (Seriously, I have to put in a quart every 400 miles or
so) I read on Wikipedia where this particular engine has cylinder
sleeves made with FRM, which tears up piston rings. While it seems like
I should just accept that, I don't believe everything on Wikipedia to be
100% accurate, 100% of the time. My dad suggested that since my car has
plenty of power, both torque and horsepower, it could just need a valve
job to stop the oil burning. Is there a way to tell without tearing the
engine apart and looking? Someone told me that one way to tell is to
start the car, let it idle for 5 minutes, shut it off for 5 minutes,
then start it back up. If it immediately puffs smoke out of the exhaust
pipe, it's the valves. If it doesn't, it's the piston rings. How
accurate is this? Any other ideas? Last of all, how much does the
average piston-ring-replacement cost?

Thanks in advance! :-)

Jonathan