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I am at 1700+ miles and it still burning a quart every 3 00 miles. I think the difference for your is there is no oil on the electrode just around the the threads. That is probably oil getting past the rings until they are fully seated.
I hope so but it's only on two cylinders out of the 6 plugs that I could access. I wish I took a photo when I removed them at 1100 miles because I can't remember if the electrode was wet, I thought it was.
Has anyone used these umbrella seals? They are like the PTFE/Viton seals but don't need to cut the valve guides. The black ones are a Chevy performance item for the ZZ4 Gen 1 Engine. The blue ones are a Felpro item.
Has anyone used these umbrella seals? They are like the PTFE/Viton seals but don't need to cut the valve guides. The black ones are a Chevy performance item for the ZZ4 Gen 1 Engine. The blue ones are a Felpro item.
I am at 1700+ miles and it still burning a quart every 3 00 miles. I think the difference for your is there is no oil on the electrode just around the the threads. That is probably oil getting past the rings until they are fully seated.
1700+ miles and still high usage in oil means there is something wrong for sure....like someone had mentioned it should start to tapper off after a 1000 miles....by 2000 you should hardly notice any usage at all....it happens quick, just one day the last cylinders will seat and oil usage is gone.....and can happen from 50 miles to 1000 miles...but 2000....that just doesnt add up. Maybe builder lined up the oil rings wrong...put rhe gaps one on top of the other...even then thats way to much oil. I would be suspecting that a couple valve seals arent doing their job....or at least hope for ya!!!
I pulled my 3 and 7 plugs last night to look at them again, they were cleaned about 400 miles ago. They have a lot of thick, black oil on the threads and towards the seal but the tip looks dry with some carbon build up. There is no oil on the outside of the plug hole. So is the oil getting into the cylinder and being burned off the tip of the plug and collecting in the threads? Sorry to piggy-back this thread but my problems sound very similar.
That oil residue could be the last of it from a new build....only way to know for sure is to clean them good, including the thread on the head, twist up a clean rag and stick it in the spark plug hole and get it cleaned, when putting plug back it, start it in the threads and take it back out immediately and make sure them come out clean, then once your satified the thread are cleaned up , install plugs and run it for another hundred miles....honestly, if i didnt see how clean the block was i would say looking at your plugs that the oil is coming from a valve cover leak, and motor isnt burning any amount of oil, but its not that, its the old oil in the threads of the head...you gotta clean thay as well....thats all.
Sorry for the description issue. I was just wondering if this style is better than the regular umbrella seals that I currently have on the intake valve.
The key advantage of these is that the head doesn't have to be taken off to cut down the valve guides.
I would think these would seal better than the "umbrella" seals I currently have.
Last edited by LenWoodruff; 09-22-2017 at 09:08 AM.
That oil residue could be the last of it from a new build....only way to know for sure is to clean them good, including the thread on the head, twist up a clean rag and stick it in the spark plug hole and get it cleaned, when putting plug back it, start it in the threads and take it back out immediately and make sure them come out clean, then once your satified the thread are cleaned up , install plugs and run it for another hundred miles....honestly, if i didnt see how clean the block was i would say looking at your plugs that the oil is coming from a valve cover leak, and motor isnt burning any amount of oil, but its not that, its the old oil in the threads of the head...you gotta clean thay as well....thats all.
The builder is looking to put in the above style seals. When I get it back I will do that with the spark plugs. Thanks.
If an engine used excessive oil and its determined the oil consumption is due to the heads which I believe it is, with this much oil consumption does it make sense the actual clearance between the valve stem and the valve guide is excessive? If this clearance is in fact excessive does it make sense the valve does not have a good contact patch on the seat? So..is replacing the valve seals really the solution? The valve seals above need the valve guide machined down to .567, most 350 heads were bigger than this except late model heads, do you know your head casting number? Yes, I have used those seals before, after machining the heads for them. You really have to ask yourself why the the engine builder didn't use a good seal from the start.
If an engine used excessive oil and its determined the oil consumption is due to the heads which I believe it is, with this much oil consumption does it make sense the actual clearance between the valve stem and the valve guide is excessive? If this clearance is in fact excessive does it make sense the valve does not have a good contact patch on the seat? So..is replacing the valve seals really the solution? The valve seals above need the valve guide machined down to .567, most 350 heads were bigger than this except late model heads, do you know your head casting number? Yes, I have used those seals before, after machining the heads for them. You really have to ask yourself why the the engine builder didn't use a good seal from the start.
You'd think an "engine builder" could put this kind of stuff together.....
SBC's originally had just a little o-ring that was half stuck in the bottom of the retainer and only shielded the top of the guide near max lift.... And when the guides were tight they don't pass any excessive oil.
Something is bad wrong with the valve guide clearance for this engine to pass this kind of oil with a huge umbrella seal on there.
I mean you can't pass that kind of oil past just the valve stem seal..... there has got to also be a massive path below the seal, for the oil to make it's way into the cyl.
Then there is the entire question of why he used a non standard (for SBC) umbrella seal in the first place......
Will
The 265" and 283" had o-rings in the spring retainers and NO stem seals. In 1959 they began using "positive" stem seals that attached to the valve guides via a weak snap ring like what we see today. Nylon "umbrella" seals are great but the Viton umbrella seals harden and break apart within 25,000 miles.
Last edited by 71VetteLover; 09-22-2017 at 11:15 AM.
If an engine used excessive oil and its determined the oil consumption is due to the heads which I believe it is, with this much oil consumption does it make sense the actual clearance between the valve stem and the valve guide is excessive? If this clearance is in fact excessive does it make sense the valve does not have a good contact patch on the seat? So..is replacing the valve seals really the solution? The valve seals above need the valve guide machined down to .567, most 350 heads were bigger than this except late model heads, do you know your head casting number? Yes, I have used those seals before, after machining the heads for them. You really have to ask yourself why the the engine builder didn't use a good seal from the start.
These are the original 78 L82 heads that came on the car. They had new bronze wall valve guides put in with harden seats for the exhaust. Also a 3 angle Valve job.
These are the original 78 L82 heads that came on the car. They had new bronze wall valve guides put in with harden seats for the exhaust. Also a 3 angle Valve job.
Thats exactly what your suppose to do them.....
It could be something as simple as a damaged valve seal...but like was mentioned above, thats alot of oil....i think you would have to be missing half of them to use that kind of oil...a quart every 4 or 5 hours??? Thats WAY beyond a seal....
Thats exactly what your suppose to do them.....
It could be something as simple as a damaged valve seal...but like was mentioned above, thats alot of oil....i think you would have to be missing half of them to use that kind of oil...a quart every 4 or 5 hours??? Thats WAY beyond a seal....
I agree it is a lot of oil to burn in 300 miles.
The engine builder ordered new seals like the ones in my pictures above that will be here on Monday.
They are going to put these on both the intake & exhaust Valves with the hope it stems the oil usage.
If it doesn't that means they will have to pull the heads to see what sup.
Last edited by LenWoodruff; 09-22-2017 at 07:18 PM.
The engine builder ordered new seals like the ones in my pictures above that will be here on Monday.
They are going to put these on both the intake & exhaust Valves with the hope it stems the oil usage.
If it doesn't that means they will have to pull the heads to see what sup.
As impossible as it may sound I have seen one case in which standard oil ring expanders were put into a .030" over Hasting ring set and recently I bought a piston/ring set from Summit and the oil ring expanders were too low of tension which resulted in using a quart every 300 miles. I replaced them with Mahle rings and it's now only using a quart every 800 miles. But I am suspecting your #6 cylinder has a deep score in it causing the oil consumption.
As impossible as it may sound I have seen one case in which standard oil ring expanders were put into a .030" over Hasting ring set and recently I bought a piston/ring set from Summit and the oil ring expanders were too low of tension which resulted in using a quart every 300 miles. I replaced them with Mahle rings and it's now only using a quart every 800 miles. But I am suspecting your #6 cylinder has a deep score in it causing the oil consumption.
Even though the #6 is the worst all of the cylinders are using oil especially the rear ones 6, 8 5, 7
I hope it is not the oil rings as you suggested. But I will get the car back next week and see.
Last edited by LenWoodruff; 09-23-2017 at 07:47 AM.
Even though the #6 is the worst all of the cylinders are using oil especially the rear ones 6, 8 5, 7
I hope it is not the oil rings as you suggested. But I will get the car back next week and see.
The oil is too clean for a ring problem. Is it possible you could tell use how much your rebuild of the engine itself cost? Heres an example of a valve job cost:
80.00 Clean and mag and steelabrate heads
225.00 Install bronze valve guides and hone to size
35.00 Cut for blue viton seals 16
225.00 3 Intake seat cut set height Radius exhaust seat cut and set height
75.00 Surface and set CCs
90.00 Clean and assemble heads
The oil is too clean for a ring problem. Is it possible you could tell use how much your rebuild of the engine itself cost? Heres an example of a valve job cost:
80.00 Clean and mag and steelabrate heads
225.00 Install bronze valve guides and hone to size
35.00 Cut for blue viton seals 16
225.00 3 Intake seat cut set height Radius exhaust seat cut and set height
75.00 Surface and set CCs
90.00 Clean and assemble heads
The machining costs were around $1500 plus another $200 extra for the forged pistons. That included the machining of the crank, boring .040 over, rod sizing, balancing and the head work which included a .015 truing up. That seemed reasonable to me.
Even though the #6 is the worst all of the cylinders are using oil especially the rear ones 6, 8 5, 7
I hope it is not the oil rings as you suggested. But I will get the car back next week and see.
I honestly dont think its something catastrophic...i think its a bed set of valve seals. Too many cylinders are using oil, its something right across all cylinders. Like garbage oil seals...we dont know what happened to them during breakin...for all we know they company could have sent the wrong ones. Or possibly the builder used the old ones because new ones didnt fit and he didnt want to wait....there are so many possibilities, lets hope a new set of seals fixes er up!!!
Also.....i read about wall scoring and what not...if you had wall scoring on walls you would have deffinately noticed it on plugs, because you are checking them, you would have seen some funky metal debris welded to the spark plug for sure....if you didnt keep checking them then you would never know....it is possible that you wouldnt see it...but at least you didnt find any so i think its still a good sign of bad seals.
I honestly dont think its something catastrophic...i think its a bed set of valve seals. Too many cylinders are using oil, its something right across all cylinders. Like garbage oil seals...we dont know what happened to them during breakin...for all we know they company could have sent the wrong ones. Or possibly the builder used the old ones because new ones didnt fit and he didnt want to wait....there are so many possibilities, lets hope a new set of seals fixes er up!!!
Also.....i read about wall scoring and what not...if you had wall scoring on walls you would have deffinately noticed it on plugs, because you are checking them, you would have seen some funky metal debris welded to the spark plug for sure....if you didnt keep checking them then you would never know....it is possible that you wouldnt see it...but at least you didnt find any so i think its still a good sign of bad seals.
As reckless said:
SBC's originally had just a little o-ring that was half stuck in the bottom of the retainer and only shielded the top of the guide near max lift.... And when the guides were tight they don't pass any excessive oil. And actually the factory guide was cast iron and ran loser clearances than bronze.
Even though the #6 is the worst all of the cylinders are using oil especially the rear ones 6, 8 5, 7
I hope it is not the oil rings as you suggested. But I will get the car back next week and see.
I'm curious about something. Does your valve covers have GOOD baffles in them to prevent oil from being sucked in by the PCV valve? And does your PCV valve hose go to the rear of your carburetor? I have seen several cases in which a PCV valve was sucking in a LOT of oil because of an un-baffled valve cover and that oil was being dumped into the rear 4 cylinders because of the hose being attached to the rear of the carburetor. My PCV valve was sucking in a lot of oil because my aftermarket valve covers were un-baffled so I soldered extensions onto the PCV valve and the breather tube that extended to within 1/4" of the head to shield them from a lot of the oil mist.
And then something else occurred to me. Are you absolutely sure you are not over-filling your engine with oil? Just one extra quart of oil will raise the oil level high enough for the crankshaft counterweights to hit the oil and sling it all over the place. If you could stand (or sit) inside your engine it would resemble an oily hurricane even under the valve covers because the amount of oil mist would be greatly increased because of the over-filling. So make absolutely sure your dip stick is marked correctly for your oil pan. A stock 350" engine should only require 5 quarts total IF you are using a one-quart oil filter. If you are using the smaller one-pint oil filter 5 quarts would slightly over-fill it and cause excessive oil misting and excessive oil consumption.
Last edited by 71VetteLover; 09-23-2017 at 12:12 PM.
09-19-2017, 11:19 AM
