Hi everyone, complete noob here. I know oil leaks happen a lot, I'm just looking for a few specifics here. I own a 1996 Civic EX with about 200k miles on it, however the engine only has around 60K miles (was replaced a few years ago). Anyways, I recently took a 45 minute road trip & when I arrived there was a big puddle of oil sitting in the driveway. I knew it had a slow oil leak as mentioned by my mechanic, but now it is a lot worse!

I have a friend who knows a lot more about cars than I do & he took a look at it for me. He believes it to be a bad seal & somewhat easily replaceable, however he is curious as to what the sensor is pictured below? The leak seems to be centered around / near it, so I took a few pictures.

So a few questions..

1) What sensor is pictured below?
2) Any clues, based off of my pictures / past civic experiences that may have caused this leak & is semi-easy to fix? I know it's hard to tell, but any guesses are fine by me.

Pics

Photo Album - Imgur

Thanks in advance for any help & if you need further info i'll try to reply asap. Most likely I will just end up bringing it to the mechanic, but if I can hire my buddy to fix it why not.

 

That is the VTEC solenoid [valve]. It's somewhat common for the gasket between it and the head to blow and cause a major oil leak. (The part is actually called the VTEC filter, since it is a gasket with integral filter screen). The VTEC system is operated by oil under pressure. If the oil is coming out of the solenoid itself and not the joint with the head, replace the solenoid assembly.