I have a whopping 200 miles of use on the new engine. It is using alot of oil. It also has 4 lifters that are not pumping up all the way which has me a bit confused. It is a fresh 325 with new 9.5:1 pistons/moly rings, fully rebuilt heads with hardened seats. Clay smith cam with .440 lift, 265 Duration and 110 lobe separation and topped of with a 500cfm Edelbrock. So I used about 3 quarts of oil in 200 highway miles of running with no external leaks. I pulled the plugs and they look like this. I also did a compression test and got some strange results. Granted there is only 200 miles on the motor and its cold. Readings are 175, 155, 155, 150, 180, 190, 160, 170. What am I doing wrong or missing here? The next issue is the look of the buildup on the intake valves after 200 miles. The ports themselves are dry and didnt have a residue that come off on my fingers. It does have whitish/blue smoke on startup and the exhaust looks like this. Edited 12 minutes ago by 59bisquik
It could be the rings just need to seat yet. However I'd like to know what the compression numbers were 200 miles ago on fresh engine. Be sucky if build up is holding valves open. What sort of PCV set up are you running? In those pics Do the plugs follow the block cyl numbers and the compression numbers follow in sequence or one side then the other? Can you clear that up.
What oil are you using ? I hope not a senthic as we found the rings don't seal correctly during break in.
The top picture in the post shows the plugs and the compression readings written on the board. The front right is #1 and the left front is #2. So the dirty plugs are scattered around the engine along with the compression readings. I have been using Castrol 10/30 for oil. No Synthetic yet. As for the PCV, it has a finned aluminum valley cover. It has a hole drilled in the center at the back of the cover next to the distributor for the valve. Yes, it has adjustable push rods in it. With having the reground cam and decking the block it was needed. As for the lifter issues, it is #1 exhaust (175) , #5 Intake (180), #2 Exhaust (155) and #6 Intake (190). When the engine was cold, I could go to those rockers and compress the lifter with just my thumb, while the others were rock hard. I did pull a few lifters to make sure they were rotating and working correctly. The pattern looked ok on both to me. Last issue, on the right bank, there is a bit of rust in the heat riser port. Any thoughts on that?
What type of baffling on the valley cover for the pvc. Try shooting some oil in the cylinders and repeat the compression test. Any word on cranking compression numbers before when the engine was fresh Where those lifters in a plain white box ?
There is no baffling under the PCV valve. It's just a flat finned aluminum cover with the hole drilled in it for the valve. Sounds like I will need to make something for that. As for the compression test, never did one. Primed the oil system and fired it up. Didn't even think to do a comp test before starting. The lifters were Johnson lifters my machinist sourced. I sent remember what box they came in. He is calling them on Monday to see about replacements.
What is the lifter part number? Yes, a baffle is needed. Water + clean cast iron = rust........ Oil consumption can be a valve stem clearance/ stem seal issue. .
I have my pcv on the valley cover without baffle under it no issue with oil on my 392. Are the valve seals good on your heads? The picture of the intake valve with the oil deposit build up on it. What about your spark plug tubes are they new and not torn where they meet the head?
It looks to me like you are getting oil down past the intake guide into the cylinders.Possibly seal damage during installation,possibly excessive stem to guide clearance.
The spark plug tubes are used but look fine. I will have to see if there is a source for the Dodge tubes. They are shorter than the Chryslers. I also have the tube seals from HHH with the o-ring in them as an extra seal. I will ask about the brand and size of the valve stem seals and clearance when I talk to the machine shop on Monday. As for the guides, valves, seals etc. Its all new.
As for the heat riser port, where could the water be coming from? There is no water in the manifold. Possibly a cracked head or head gasket? How does that port work?
Good idea to baffle the PCV valve to keep it from picking up any splash oil. Where else is the crankcase vented to atmospheric? You don't want the crankcase running under full manifold vacuum. You mention blue smoke at start up. How about during idle and deceleration? This would indicate valve guide and/or valve seal problems. From the tailpipe and plug pictures it almost looks more like fuel fouling than oil fouling. Does your oil feel thin or smell of gasoline? Is the choke working properly and opening fully? What's the manifold vacuum at idle and cruising speed? Is there fuel dripping from the main nozzles at idle?
The crankcase is also vented at the front of the block for the oil fill tube. My machinist also thought the valve build up looked fuel related. I haven't been using the choke to start and it's a manual choke on a new 500cfm Edelbrock. It was 17 to 18 inches of vacuum while idling. I have not checked it while on the highway. I have a handheld gauge that hooks to a manifold port. As for the smoke, it does smoke lightly while idling. Under load, it's hard to tell with the exhaust on the passenger side.
Pretty sure the heat riser shares the two middle exhaust ports, so maybe the rust is just from the water vapor produced by combustion? Our Hemi had the same stuff in the heat riser port, so I'm curious to know.
I have seen that kind of buildup on intake valves while working at Chrysler engineering on the 440 six pack engines. It was due to a excessive rich mixture because of incorrect carb jetting. It got so bad at times that it almost plugged the intake port. The rich mixture washed the oil from the cylinder walls and caused the rings to leak.
It's probably just an optical illusion in the photo above, but it looks like some of the spark plugs have little or no gap. Tell me I'm just seeing things there. The heat crossover in the intake is used to route a portion of the exhaust from one side of the engine to the other under certain conditions. This quick supply of exhaust heat passing thru the intake can serve a couple purposes. It can supply heat to the choke thermostat to help open the choke blade as the engine warms up. It also provides heat around the base of the carburetor to aid in fuel atomization, especially at lower RPMs. As already mentioned by Tartar Sammich you might be seeing water vapor from the exhaust which would produce rust pretty quickly on clean cast iron. Are you running stock exhaust manifolds with a heat riser valve? Do your intake gaskets have the crossover passages blocked off?
I'm trying to get my head around Build up on back side of valves and dry ports coming from rich mixture and ring seal getting oil on the back side of the intake valve.
Real hard to tell from the photos as to whether the build-up is oil or carbon. If the carb is waaay too rich then the fuel 'could' wash the oil from the port walls hiding an issue from the pcv and at the same time the fuel cokes on the valve. The process continues with carbon fouled plugs and as Dahemikota says the fuel 'could' then clean the rings as well. ...but that is alot of fuel.... I wish someone would get busy on a teleporter....... .
Pictures of Black spark plugs on a black board with black writing across the internet makes it harder than it has to be. I agree with the gap looking off
I get fuel washing the cylinder walls down and killing the rings but how does oil in the cylinder make it to the back side or the intake valve exhaust I can understand. Three quarts in 200 miles is a lot of smoke. and the tail pipe does not look like that kind of oil use.
The plugs are gapped at .035. The truck has Sanderson shorty headers on it, no stock manifolds here. After all of the different suggestions and the odd wear pattern on the lifters, I am gonna pull it back out and check the cam, lifters, cam degree and look for any other issues such as rings. As well as taking the carb off and having it gone thru at Fuel Curve. I will let you guys know what I find. I appreciate all the help.
One way to clean the deposits off the valves without pulling the heads apart is to use an oxy-acetylene brazing torch with a small tip. Make sure the valve is closed and the intake manifold is removed. Light the torch and put the flame in contact with the deposit on the valve. When the deposit starts to glow, shut the acetylene off and let the oxygen burn the deposit off the valve. When the deposit is gone, the flame will extinguish its self. The valve will be clean like new. Removing that kind of deposit by hand is like trying to get dry roofing tar off of something. That is the method we used at Chrysler because we were tired of pulling the heads off to clean the valves. I also use this method to clean heat crossovers in intake manifolds.
The oil on the back of the valves is a concern, stem seals should seal immediately. This is probably where the oil is going. The stem seals are probably the easiest thing to look at without diving too far into it. Good call on having the carb looked at, excess fuel can thin oil enough so it gets past seals and rings. One thing at a time, part of a process and everyone learns something here.
Oil that gets past the stem seal will collect on the back side of the valve head and the heat from combustion will cook it..... .
I totally agree with the valve stem seals. But there was a post that made it seem that ring seal oil was going up stream to the back side of the valve.
May not be the same, but I'll throw it out there. I had a fresh 327 in my Corvette and it went through a quart of oil for each tank of gas. Ran it that way for a couple of thousand miles hoping it would clean up. It never did. Pulled the heads and took them to the machine shop. The backs of the valves looked a lot like yours. My machinist says it was improperly installed valve seals, which he replaced. I'm putting it together now. My compression was a consistent 165-170 across all eight.
Do the lifters really look suspicious? They appear to be rotating in their bores like they should be. And for the most part, much of the work you're proposing probably won't have any effect on oil consumption. Possibly a ring problem. I suspect that you didn't line up the end gaps, did you? Were the bores properly finished for the moly rings? Or are there some other problems that you're also trying to correct?
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