Could be just valvetrain wear or maybe (worst case) a cam lobe and/or lifter biting the dust. I wiped a cam lobe off of a flat tappet solid lifter cam once. just kerosene washed the oil pan out real good and installed new parts- the engine ran great afterwards. bearings were no worse for wear- the oil filter caught most of it.

 

It's not magnetic so I don't think it's a cam lobe.. valve train is extremely quiet.

I think I'll start by pulling the oil pump drive shaft and gear out. If that's ok I will pull the pan. It's got to be brass or copper I would think. It's definitely gold In color and not magnetic

 

First, oil pressure of 80 is possible, I have that with both my cars and they both have Melling Pumps. Second, that oil cannot be 5w30. If you did put 5w30 in it as a break in oil, you messed up. However that oil looks like it has the consistency of honey, so I bet it is 40 or 50 weight. The material in that is probably from initial break in and of course if you did indeed run it with 5 30 then you have had more initial wear. If it were mine, I would just change oil, with Rotella 15/40 and put on a new filter and run it for another 1,000 miles. I would not be concerned unless you start losing oil pressure or missing and losing power.

 

I have changed the oil twice since break in. This oil is 5w 30 mobile one. I use that in all 3 of my sports cars. It has about 1500 miles on it. The first 2 oil changes where 500 miles each.

 

I think the video makes the oil look thicker than It is. It's really actually quite thin

 

Alright man. Go ahead. Let me know what ya find. First pry the hole crank forward, back and then forward again and get a thrust measurement and see what #2 & #4 look's like.
I was always a motor man and even for a clutch, would pull a motor and have it Swing-in quicker than most would drop a pan or a flywheel but thats my thing and my opinion. Don't like screwing around with internals, unless it's out.
It's a new motor and IMO the oil was in there to long or not dumped enough for my liking.
You could pour that oil into a white towel or 3 or 4 coffee filters and see what ya got. How many times u change that oil since you been through ur Dyno runs and about a couple hundred blasts in boost? Your pressure good and it hasn't changed, right since new? you weren't seeing a ticking in the gauge?
Find a way thats good for -ya because like I said it's not a 100,000 mile motor built to be theft untouched. I'd be in there every winter seeing how everything's wear-in and sending the rods out everytime.
Did the builder give you ur clearances when you got the motor back? IMO it's may of been put together too tight. I wouldn't want .001 on the mains and you may have that with your high oil pressure. I'd want .002 to .0025 with full grooved mains that where chamfered and some throw away rod bolts after one tightening and once the rod caps are loosened they get sent out for new ones to be fitted and the big end of the rod checked and resized if needed, then shot peened again. SBC Rods clamping power is it's weakest link

 

This oil has alot of wot pulls on it. Street tunning and wot pulls combined. 1500 miles. That's why I was changing it in the first place.

I haven't noticed any "ticking" in my oil pressure gauge. What would ticking suggest? A bad gear?

I don't like the fact that there is so much money into this engine and material in the oil. I'm not going to take a chance on it. The stuff is coming from somewhere.

Good thing it's winter. The car will be down for 6 months so I have time to fix it.

 

no problem; at least with a stock exhaust (no headers)

 

you might wanna do a compression check for chits and grins b4 pulling parts off it. Color of that oil just aint right.

 

I'm not there and cannot see what the true color of the oil is, or the viscosity of it, so all I can do is guess....
It does seem too thick and dark to be normal. It seems like its got some carbon accumulation. Somehow. For a brand new build...that's odd.

The metal.....

IMO, and that certain don't mean much, that's TOO much metal for wear-in, or an engine that was assembled too tight. Its got enough miles to have had the internals mated and worn-in together, and after 2 or 3 oil changes this is quite obviously NEW debris that's being ground off something....I would normally see the metal particles in the 1st oil change, not the 3rd. By now it should all be seated, mated and worn-in.

I'd get the analysis and start with the easy things, but I'd reserve any deep exploration until AFTER you get the report where you can take it to the builder. This may be something that's "on him" if you handle it properly. So don't mess with it too much yet.

I think the type and wt of oil is wrong for this. Mobil-1 should not be in there till after 1000 miles at least, and the break-in should have gone with a 0-20 or 5-20wt. Even after 1 or 2000 miles I'd hesitate to put a 30 wt in a new, tight engine. And the synthetics do not go in until after everything has seated and well broken in. Its proven that synthetics can delay or prevent a good seating of rings and even cause cyl glaze where the rings cannot seat. Cylinders have to be honed again to remove the glaze so the rings can get some friction and seat themselves. IIRC, there is something on an ad or on a bottle that warns against the use of the synthetic until after break-in and that has to be 500 miles or more depending on how tight it was assembled and so on.
Again, this is just MY opinion, since I'm not there I don't know for sure but I'd sure be looking for answers on the assembly. Something is not right IMO and if thru, then some ONE needs to be held accountable.

Good luck, hopefully you caught it in time where the clean-up and repair will be minimal..
get your report and post it ! lots of interest here !

 

Thanks. Engine is coming out to see what's going on. While I'm at it I will make a couple more changes and see if I can get some more power out of it!

 

well, if you're gonna take it apart to dig some more...
did you get all the intake matched up real well? its surprising how poorly a lot of "performance" parts do not mate to the next piece in the intake very well. Horrible gasket overlap that negates the nice flow of expensive CNC cut heads or intakes.

Got the quench right? another thing that's often overlooked in a build. That's more math than I'm good for, so I always consult someone that's got a better calculator ! and knows how to drive it.

I've read somewhere when studying parasitic drag and HP loss due to the needs of an engine, and they (some lab somewhere) discovered that the typical engine used (lost, wasted...) 3 hp splashing the crank counter weights in the oil. I guess there are baffles to fix this.
The drag from accessories was damn near shocking....3 to 5 for a PS pump, that much again for the water pump, even more for the a/c compressor. As much as 20 hp lost to the serpentine belt and what it turns.
Intakes...always something to mess with there....its always an experiment, but it usually turns out well, You most times get to keep what hp you had, and occasionally find a couple more hp by digging one out. Plenums too. They're a bit harder to get HP from since they are basically a storage closet for air. But when you can make a decent improvement in how fast and smoothly the air can flow thru a plenum, then ya got something ! That's the hard part, They are so big already, all you can do is grind the casting ridges inside and knock down some bumps and hope you did good ! Worst case on stuff like that, you wasted your time and maybe a couple cutting bits !

Theres always something to be had when you take one apart. Sometimes you just change the way it runs, not necessarily how much power it has, just where it is. That can be a benefit if you do it right.

Right now, finding where that metal came from is all I'd be thinking about. I'm poor and can't afford to do things twice, so I'd be sitting at the lab waiting for the analysis to print out so I could see asap. I'd want to look at that before the ink dried !

Good luck ! I'm sure it will end well

 

Yup the intake is a gmpp lt4 port matched to the afr 210 heads. The openings for the throttle body have been ported to fit the 58 mm blades. The headers are American racing 1 7/8 step headers that where touched up to match the heads as best ar I could make them. If I was on my laptop I'd post pics. This is a 600 rwhp procharged engine.

I will be looking into a little better cam, new pistons because what I have in there have the 5/64 3/16 rings and no manufacturer offers a good top ring for boost in that size. So I will be going to a diamond piston and better rings. I'm also going to switch to e85 and build a custom intercooler setup for the car. I want to see 20 psi boost this spring.

So atleast I found the material before major damage was caused. The new parts will be relatively inexpensive considering what I already have into this thing.

I'd love to see 750-800 RWHP Out of it next spring but that's pretty tall dreams!

 

You should consider talking with Diamond/Venolia's or who ever and let them know how much boost you plan on running with their forged full floating slugs because I'm sure they would say to stay around 8 to 8.5 to 1 with .002 to .003 piston to wall instead of the higher ratio ur running with maybe tighter piston to wall clearances with boost levels at or higher than 14psi. Otherwise it will be scuffing badly and you will be always fighting Detonation problems.
Remember anytime you force 14psi of boost into an engine, you have the Equivalent of doubling it's cubic inches and your shooting for more than that.

And at those levels ur pushing the stock block case's design and ring seal is a problem and the hole rotating assy's life will be risked. An L/S block's core/case design, is much stronger and can handle the higher boost levels but not the older cast iron blocks, maybe studded/sonic checked and filled completely, but even then, it's a crap shoot with a lot of dough at risk every time ur into those high boost levels.

I'm saying if you want to run close or over 20 psi of boost and have it survive more than 20 or 30 passes let alone 5000 miles without metal shavings in the oil, or blowing it up, look into a studded Iron Dart block or a Iron L/S motor with properly clearanced and fitted components, with the right rods that still will need to be swapped out regularly.

 

Next spring we'll be seeing quite a few driveline questions !

 

Diamond is the company I will go with. I used them on my ls7 build with awesome results. They make nice stuff.

I'm keeping my compression at 10:1. I know 10 guys making 800 hp on a splayed 2 bolt block and 20 + psi with no major failures.

I have ran 15 psi to this engine a few times experimenting with different intercooler setups. This engine took it in stride. Zero blowby. Zero detonation ever. Even at 26* of timing. To me that's awesome. Especially on pump 93 octane fuel.

I will be keeping the splayed Block I have now and just upgrading a few things.

If it was a turbo car I would go down to 8:1 but I don't have iat problems... Never had any detonation problems either.

 

Haha yea. It's setup pretty good now but at 700+ at the wheels I'm sure I'll have more work cut out for me.

 

This may be a long shot, but assuming the blower uses the engine oil to lubricate, is it possible something inside the blower is causing it?

 

The blower is self contained.

 

Here is a intake pic from when it was ported!