Ok well my 383 tpi has been blowing blue smoke for the last few days.It smokes all the time, during idle and any rpm range.so lastnight I decided to do a leak down and change all the valve stem seals.Well I found a total of 6 seals that where chewed up from the comp springs being to close to the thick seal.I replaced them all with teflon seals and it helped a little but it still bows the blues a little bit.
The leak down showed my rings to be seated good since I have from 0% to 2% leakdown in all the cylinders...
so what the heck is the deal with it still smoking?I drove it for a good 20 miles and I would think that would be enough for any residual oil left to burn out.Does anybody got any ideas?

 

Steady oil burning isn't a sign of valve stem seals. It's good you checked and got them fixed however. You DID replace all 16, right? You may still have an oil ring problem. The oil rings contribute nothing to the cylinder sealing. In fact, if they are suppling oil to seal the compression rings that could help with the VERY low leakage you observed. You didn't use low tension oil rings in the new engine, did you?

RACE ON!!!

 

yes I replaced all the seals and I honestly dont recal what rings I used nor can I find any reciepts or the boxes from the stuff i used since I did the rebuild at my old work place.

 

I agree with CFI-EFI - this has all the makings of being a ring problem.

 

Any way it is sucking oil in a leaky intake gasket ?? It can happen.

 

How is the crankcase breathing? If you are using a PCV valve did you check it?

 

Have you checked the plugs?

If only one plug or just a few are oil fouled, I suspect you may have mis-installed the rings on the piston(s). There are several possibilities:

The gap is set too tightly and the ring ends have butted; this'll **** the ring(s) in the bore and will kill them in short order or

You installed either the top or second compression ring upside down (maybe both) or

The oil ring spacer ends are over-lapped rather than butted or

You installed the top compression ring in the 2nd ring groove and the 2nd in the top.

If ALL the plugs are oil fouled, then the problem lies elsewhere, UNLESS you installed all the rings incorrectly. But I just don't see that happening.

Hope this helps.

Jake

 

the rings where file fit and a good freind of mine at jackson machine is actually the one who set the gap so I dont believe they are laped together. and the rings where intalled right and in the proper order.I found that all the plugs in the cylinders with the bad seals where shot....is there anyway to find out where the leak may be without tearing the motor out and back down?

 

File fitting the rings and making sure the oil ring spacer isn't over-lapped are two different things. I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss rings as a possibility though, we all make mistakes. For now, I'll take your word for it that they were installed correctly.

How many oil-fouled plugs are we talking about?

What's the blow-by look like?

The cylinder head intake ports can suck oil from the bottom of the port if the wrong gaskets were used or if there is a mis-match between the intake manifold and the cylinder head(s). This may show up on a vacuum gauge reading because the needle will drop when the effected valve(s) open.

Sometimes you can crank the engine with the plugs removed and a mist of oil will blow out of the spark plug hole.

Unfortunately, you may be tearing into the engine again.

Jake

 

well I found 4 plugs that where black but they didnt have any fresh oil on them.the oil rings I know for a fact were not overlaped.as far as blow by, I do get a bit of what looks like steam/smoke out of the pvc hole.theres a little bit of fresh oil on the pvc but not much at all.none of the threads have any fresh oil them either.I am gonna try the vacume gauge and see if I can see a drop in vacume or not.
do you think because I have very little miles on the motor (800) the rings may have not seated all the way?but I got a very low reading on the leakdown so I dont think thats the case.how about the oil rings, do they seat like the compression rings do?

 

ok well I checked the vacume and at idle I have a steady 15 inches.also the gasket kit I used was a 260-1478 fel-pro whole engine kit.it came with two diffrent sets of intake gaskets.one set had the water ports open at both ends and the other had one end closed off with a small hole at the top on the rear.I used the ones with both ends open.the other ones I got here are 93317 fel-pro..

 

A small amount of smoke out of the PCV hole in the valve cover is normal. However, it should be puffing like a coal fired locomotive.

The only rings I know of that take time to seat are chrome rings. Plasma Moly rings seat almost instantly.

Are you running Plasma Moly rings? Were the walls honed for the rings you're running? Oh, I forgot, you don't know.

I've taken a fresh engines directly off the engine stand, installed them in the car and fired up just long enough to set the timing, top off the coolant, and re-lash the valves then headed straight to the starting line.

Nary a bit of smoke and the car ran over 170 MPH in the quarter. Smoking out the exhaust is NOT normal; something's definitely wrong.

The way to address a problem like this is to go all the way back to square one. DON'T assume that something's 'RIGHT'; that's the first mistake. Even the best engine builders in the world, like the Formula 1 and NASCAR engine mechanics, make mistakes. We're all human.

Start with the easiest things to check first; those things that can be checked and verified without tearing into the engine.

If nothing is found in those first steps, you've got to dive in deeper and you've got to keep on doing that, going deeper and deeper until the cause is found. Even if that involves going all the way back and tearing down the short block assembly.

Jake

 

well thanks and we'll see what happens this weekend when I start tearing into it..good thing I just bought a new compresor..I think I am going to need it..