I had my 03 Z at a drivers ed, I missed a shift, and thought I bent a valve, I took my car down south to get some AFR heads and a cam put in it, long story short, once they got the head off, they found a cracked piston, so they talked me into putting a set of forged ceramic Mahle pistons and rings, so we did the pistons, rings, bearings, cam, heads, underdrive pulley, and a mild tune, I picked it up, I was told it would take about 500 miles for the rings to seat, and not to go over 6K rpm, which I havent taken it over 4K, but the problem I am having, is it pushed the dipstick out of the tube about an inch and basically coated the whole engine compartment with oil, so I cleaned it up, and I thought maybe the dipstick seal was weak so I tie strapped the dipstick down where it would not be able to blow up, but now, under acceleration, its pushing oil through the valve cover gaskte and oil pan gasket, but only in the right side, my question is, is this normal with a new set of pistons, another fact is, I was told there was no damage to the block, but yet on the reciept they stated they honed it out, is it possible they honed it too much, will this blow by clear up in 300 miles, I put about two hundred miles on the car so far, on initial start up, I get a puff of blue smoke, but it does go away, but should this be happening? On a brand new motor from the factory, there isnt any blow by, I realize there is a break in period but I have bought several new cars, and never had blow by issues,, one more factor, when you take the oil filler cap off, and rev the motor, kind of white smoke and lots of oil shoots out like a geyser when you keep it at a steady 2 or 3 k rev....I have never had a set of pistons replaced, so I dont know if I am expecting too much, or is there a problem in the bottom end ?

 

None of what you describe is typical of a new engine. Something internally is drastically wrong and I advise a leak down test to determine which cylinder is pressurizing the system.

 

Yes, I agree too. Sort of sounds like a head gasket didn't seal or something more serious but it sure isn't remotely normal for a new engine.

 

I had the same exact symptoms on a L98 stroker build. Dipstick popping up and puking oil all over the headers and oil entering the throttle body via the pcv breather vent tube.

On disassembly, found a ring land cracked (area between the rings). I assume one of the rings popped out of the ring compressor and got hung-up when installing the pistons. Since it was a fresh build, I just replaced the one piston/rings and all was good again.

Also during initial break-in, it's good to open-up the throttle, abt 1/2 way, at low to mid rpms to help seat the rings. Just don't the rpms get too high. I keep them below 3000 for the first 300 miles.

 

Was the engine build done with the engine in or out of the car? What type of hone job did they use? Were the pistons oversize?

 

That is definitely not normal. If you have enough blow by that its pushing through the gaskets during easy driving, its pretty bad.

 

No, they were not oversized, as far as hone goes, I dont know, but I will find out....The build was supposedly done outside the car, I live about two hours away so I never visually saw the motor out of the car, but I assume it was because when I got the car back the steering wheel was crooked....

 

The gentlemen is very appologetic about what has happened, and is willing to do the leak down test to see where the problem is, however, either way the motor has to come back out, so in your opinion, what should I do, let him proceed and repair the one or more cylinder(s), or should I just buy a new short block, which I can get for around 35ish, and have him or someone put that in, because I do not want to have to do this again, I am afraid that there may be permanent damage to my block, such as honed too much, or etc,,,,,,

 

TopSpeedNeed,

The lowest risk might be to go with the short block depending where you purchase it from. Your current one might be repaired, but knowing nothing about the person doing the work it is hard to gauge if this would turn out good or bad.

If it were me, I'd go with a short block from a known good source.

Best of luck!

 

Either way, its got to come back out or repaired.. you won't be able to run it like this.

 

Okay, latest update, they got the car back, the leak test results were, the hights leak was 9 percent, the lowest leak was 6 percent.... they are telling me, that is very good numbers...... is that true ????

 

On a new motor I thought they should all be under 5% but I could be wrong.

 

Try not to stress too much. It sounds like the tuner is going to take care of you. They (or their engine builder) will identify the problem.

 

What is the status of your PCV system???

Is it functioning correctly????

Thats the first thing that I would check. Make sure that its free flowing and the PCV valve is the correct one and functioning correctly!

BC

 

He did mention that these engines did and do have a problem sometimes with the PCV plate and valve, he has ordered and new one of each and will try that next.....