Oil Burning After Rebuild

[bigvette1]

I rebuilt the 454 in a 73. Have the heads done with the following:
- Magnaflex for cracks and none
- New guides on all intake and exhaust
- New PC seals
- Heads milled .003" for flat surface.
- New valves and springs, retainers and rockers

The block was done with all the correct and methodical performance machine work, tolerances and balancing. Parts used were:
- Magnaflex for cracks and none.
- Speed Pro pistons with speed pro rings filed to fit
- Melling HV oil pump
- New cam, timing gears, bearings etc.

All FelPro gaskets were used.

When the engine is fully warm and you sit at a stop, when you start off it will smoke. If you park it for 10-15 minutes, it will smoke. If you rev if several times it will smoke. Uses a quart per 200 miles.

I even changed the intake manifold to another one using Victor Renz gaskets instead of FelPro and does the same thing. The bolt holes line up perfect so I doubt there is a machines angle difference between the head and intake.

Machine shop and performance shop says compression and leak down are good. Says the rings should have seated.

Any ideas on what I am missing or where do I go from here before pulling and disassembe again???

 

[cntrhub]

I'm curious about the cylinder bore cleaning? Was there any machining done to the cylinders? After a final honing, someone should have washed the cylinders down with warm soapy water. The drying cloth should have been spotless, showing no gray matter.
The only other thing would be one or two (center) oil scraper rings are turned upside down?
Pull the plugs and check for any wet tips. This should pinpoint a trouble cylinder......if it is a ring problem?

 

[JohnZ]

What kind of rings were used? Moly-faced rings seat in about ten minutes (assuming correct hone pattern was used), but chrome rings can sometimes take 500 miles or so, and are sensitive to break-in procedure. Are all the plugs the same color, or is the issue isolated only to one cylinder?

 

[Mac]

Did you clean all of the oil passages through the heads? I heard of a guy whose passages were plugged so oil was sitting under valve covers and seeping down instead of flowing away smoothly. The results were supposedly similar to what you've described. I don't have direct knowledge of this; only heresay.

 

[tazdevl35]

Recheck the crush pattern on those intake gaskets. If there is ANY gap or excessive gap that the gasket cant make up for you will use oil. Also compression has nothing to do with the oil control rings...the oil rings only wipe the oil off the cylinder walls and if you have a stuck, cracked, misaligned, or excessively gapped oil control ring ,it will cause the engine to smoke with no loss of compression...



Good Luck..


Taz :cool

 

[brusso]

This may be a silly question but I didn't see valve seals in your list of replacement parts. Were they replaced?

 

[AKRAY4PLAY]

pull your spark plugs, they will tell which cylinder(s) are burning oil. if it is just two or three, then you most likely have a lower end problem. if all cylinders are thirsty, then i would look to valve seals, intake gaskets and then wrong cross-hatch/honing for the type of rings you have. one other largely over looked item is the pcv valve. if you are running nonbaffled valve covers, then oil is getting flung up into the pcv and drawn into the intake. pull your pcv line and look for oil. bad/misaligned intake gaskets will have clean intake mainifold runners and oily head runners. best of luck, Brian

 

[resto75]

If you changed valve covers you might have the problem Brian just mentioned. My son had a ford pickup a few years ago that just sucked up oil but didn't appear to be burning it or leaking it. It turned out to be the unbaffled valve cover the previous owner had installed and the PVC valve was just drawing oil into the engine and burning it up.

Check the easy things first before you tear it apart.

 

[Jack]

When the engine is fully warm and you sit at a stop, when you start off it will smoke. If you park it for 10-15 minutes, it will smoke. If you rev if several times it will smoke. Uses a quart per 200 miles.

I even changed the intake manifold to another one using Victor Renz gaskets instead of FelPro and does the same thing. The bolt holes line up perfect so I doubt there is a machines angle difference between the head and intake.

Machine shop and performance shop says compression and leak down are good. Says the rings should have seated.

Any ideas on what I am missing or where do I go from here before pulling and disassembe again???

Well ... if you're sure the intake ain't leakin'... and you're sure you've got decent baffles in VC (cheapo BBC aftermarket VCs often don't). Well ... it's real easy to install top or second ring(s) upside down. Upside down ring(s) will check OK on comp & leak down ... but they won't ever seat ... and they'll pump oil. I once ringed nearly all 8 with an upside down ring on each ... but caught it before buttoning up.
JACK:gap