My receipt shows valve seals are Enginetech S2886. But internet search shows them reddish in color. These seals are black and are all at the top. The machinist is insisting 15-20% leakage will not burn that much oil but i didn't tell him it is unacceptable.
Well the first item to determine is where is the 15% going. The oil burning may be secondary issue. I’m with the others that say it’s time to tear it down completely and get it fixed. At this point you are spinning your wheels. Ingesting oil through the valves won’t cause a 15% leak. the point about the intake leaking at the head is valid, you could easily be leaking and sucking in through the gasket area between the head and intake. I won’t use the steel intake gaskets, TA composites only, then a AMP valley pan cover to keep oil off the bottom of the intake.
Yes I agree I'm gonna have to tear it down. Just gonna make this machinist try to understand. He seems very knowledgeable and experienced. I'll call him again today. Whatever the problem is it seems pretty consistent on all cylinders.
Where the intake mates with the cylinder head. I would remove the intake and have a look. Fel Pro used to include a liquid type sealant you brushed around the intake ports on the head, and metal gasket, they don’t furnish that anymore, CHEAP SKATES Check your intake to head sealing
Thumbs up to the above post, as this is the first place to start. Note also that any oil getting into the chamber greatly reduces a given fuels octane level. This means that light ping maybe going on most of the time and that light explosion instead of a normal burn will unseat the rings, and when the rings unseat you burn oil at one rate or another.
Just an update. Machinist said to check if there's vacuum in the crank case when I 1st start up cold indicating vacuum port leak as mentioned today. I still need to retorque the stock intake manifold. He also thinks umbrella seals are possibly failing because of spring dampener interference. He's giving me a spring compressor to check a seal condition. Tim at TA performance said throw away the valve dampeners and put regular viton seals on. Neither think my leakdown test results are definitively a piston seal issue. I'm not ready to pull engine anyway so I'll check these issues next. Thanks again everyone!
Boy that sure seems to make the most sense to me. It would explain a LOT. I would much rather fix an intake leak or replace valve seals! I'm trying not to get my hopes up
Buick used those sheet metal gaskets forever. You think they would have had problems if they were crap.
I just retorqued intake manifold. Less than 1/4 turn each. It doesn't seem like that would make any difference. I'll try to get the spring compressor this weekend next.
they used them because they are low cost. It doesn’t mean they are any good. Buick didn’t actually balance these engines either, you feel that that is “good enough” the way they stuck a few weights in the balancer to calm down vibrations? I internally balance all of my engines, with SFI flexplates and balancers.
Well in the 80's you had to use the metal gasket and I changed a cam and I did this at least 2 times since first I put on a 4bbl intake then later on I put a cam in and had to use the metal gasket. you just have to put the stuff on the water ports and that is it. It isn't going to move since it has tabs on the bottom to hold it to the engine. heck I did this 3 time since I rebuilt the engine in 1978. when I didn't know crap. I guarantee this is not the problem with oil going out the tail pipe. The TA composite gaskets are actually harder to put on as you take a chance of them moving when putting on the intake, you have to be straight and it has to go on there the first time. I used copper seal to glue it to the motor and made longer pins for the block and got the SP3 started on those pins and dropped it in place and it worked perfectly. I just took it off to change cam and it was on there nice and straight. putting that metal gasket in place is a no brainer
The Only time I've experienced that much oil consumption was on my dad's brand new 70, SS396 Chevelle. 1 qt. every 500 miles. GM had us do an oil consumption test on a trip to Disney in FL. They warranteed the short block, reused same heads, etc. to solve the problem. Wasn't intake leak, valve stem seals, but the rings, pistons. Good luck, but that amount of oil you're eating up is major....
Yep the factory bathtub gasket is pretty straight forward, I’ve never had an issue either. Always did wonder “HTF this thing seal metal on metal” but it did!
I got a spring compressor. Machinist said to use valve seals that came with my felpro gasket kit after I remove the dampeners and pitch the umbrellas. I have ta stage 1 valves and springs. Sound good?
Most machine the guide boss o.d. down to use the smaller viton seals so they are not even close to touching the inner spring, or in your case the dampner. If there's room for those stock type felpro seals, great! No machining needed.
I found out this from a wolfs head engineer years ago. In terms of going through oil from leakage, if you leak out one drop every mile then you will go through a full Qt in 500 miles.
Those droplets must be pretty big! Typical water droplets are usually somewhere between 15,000 and 19,000 per quart depending on lots of things, meaning a drop of wolf's head would be more than 30 times the size of a water droplet. Maybe there was more to his comment than that. Devon
