Superbird WAS a mosquito fogger - only a couple of years later....It's fixed!!!

[70Sbird]

Ok, The saga of my superbird engine woes continues.

It's all back together and in the car. The car runs and drives better than ever, with one issue....It smokes - a lot. Predominantly from the passenger tailpipe but some is coming out of the drivers side as well (has factory "H" pipe). I understand that newly rebuilt engines need to break in but this is not right. I have driven the car just over 200 miles this last week and have used two Quarts of oil. and the back of the bird is covered with black oily residue.
When we dynoed the engine last fall after the last rebuild, all cylinders were +/- 5psi of 165psi, and the pcv line is currently dry. So, I'm assuming it's not going past the rings or the pcv would be oily.
Any suggestions what to start looking for?
Next plan is a hot compression test to verify nothing has changed with the rings, all I can figure is that its sucking oil into the intake ports from somewhere in the valley, or it's going past the valve seals or something else I havent thought of yet.

Mods, if this needs to be moved out of the Aero section feel free
Thanks for any suggestions
Scott  

[moparstuart]

What weight oil are u running? ?  Are the rings chrome moly?   

[70Sbird]

What weight oil are u running? ?  Are the rings chrome moly?  

moly top ring and using Joe Gibbs HR1 15W-50

[cdr]

probably the oil rings got damaged when pistons where installed,pcv would still look clean because the top 2 rings are sealing

[BigBlockSam]

 

[FLG]

Im gonna say your sucking in oil through the valley pan, did you use the paper gaskets? Its best to just use the metal pan with some silicone or if you can find it, hylomar (not sure on spelling but its good stuff)

Valve seals would be more of an issue during start up more than anything and you wont be using quarts very quickly.

[404NOTFOUND]

X2 for the intake gaskets. My experience with just a valley pan say it doesn't work. Sealer works for a short time but eventually gets sucked in the motor. Even if sealer does seem to work, how can you be sure? With the excellent Felpro gaskets, you are sure. It's a cheap and easy way to eliminate one variable before you start digging deeper.

[tan top]

 oh no sorry to hear this !! what a bummer 

im thinking valley pan tray too 

[b5blue]

  Pull the intake, as rebuilt engines vary in tolerances there is no one solution on the valley pan install.( According to Larry Shepard ) That's why there are several thicknesses of paper gaskets for the intake available. You can lay the intake on top of the assembled block and heads and check everything with a feeler gauge. The variance of deck height, head milling, head gaskets used and so on will change required thickness. I ran into this after changing the heads on my six pack 440. 
  I had oil on top of my valley pan somehow look there first. It took 2 or 3 hundred miles for this to happen to me.     

[charger_fan_4ever]

Leakdown test would be a good check. Or poor mans leakdown test if you don't have access to a leakdown guage. Take the compression on all cyl's then add a teaspoon of oil and do the test again. If you have cyls with a big gain that would be where i'd start digging. If all seems well witht he #'s then pull the intake.

[Hemi Runner]

Stick a bore scope down the intake and look at the backs of the intake valves. If they're black and caked, you'll know it's a valve guide/intake valley leak issue. The fix for that is to bring over your checkbook and you can leave with a hemi

[BPTRacing]

Scott,

If you need a hand, I have leak down tester, compression tester, and a bore scope. I am located in Champaign IL

Scott Spies

[moparstuart]

Your the man scott        scott & scott 

[TheAutoArchaeologist]

It was just a little oil.  Now the front of my car will NEVER rust.  So THANK YOU.



Ryan

[moparstuart]

It was just a little oil.  Now the front of my car will NEVER rust.  So THANK YOU.



Ryan

[cdr]

Scott,

If you need a hand, I have leak down tester, compression tester, and a bore scope. I am located in Champaign IL

Scott Spies

if the oil rings are damaged, compression & leak down wont show anything wrong,bore scope might help

[BPTRacing]

Scott,

If you need a hand, I have leak down tester, compression tester, and a bore scope. I am located in Champaign IL

Scott Spies

if the oil rings are damaged, compression & leak down wont show anything wrong,bore scope might help

OK, I also have access to a facility and equipment to completely disassemble the motor and put it back together. Even changed rod and main bearings in my 512 twice without ever taking the motor out of the car.

[moparstuart]

Scott u are awesome 

[cdr]

Scott,

If you need a hand, I have leak down tester, compression tester, and a bore scope. I am located in Champaign IL

Scott Spies

if the oil rings are damaged, compression & leak down wont show anything wrong,bore scope might help

OK, I also have access to a facility and equipment to completely disassemble the motor and put it back together. Even changed rod and main bearings in my 512 twice without ever taking the motor out of the car.

hey scott i wasn't trying to be a butt head,just givin my  

[70Sbird]

Thanks for all the response - especially Scott!
I've been travelling last week for work and then drove a bus full of teenagers up to Wisconsin Dells over the weekend, so I havent had much time to go after this issue. I'm going to do a compression and leak down test first as was suggested, but my gut is leaning toward the valley pan, the block was slightly decked (just enough to true things up) when the block was prepped and the heads have been milled. the intake is an out of the box Edelbrock performer, and the valley gasket is simply the fel-pro steel piece. With any kind of luck I'll get a few minutes to chase my oil burning this coming weekend.

[70Sbird]

Just wanted to throw an update out there and share what I found inside the engine (at least what I found last fall when I finally opened it up)
As many here correctly guessed, the intake gasket was leaking like a sieve! This issue has now consumed almost another year of the cars (and my) life but hopefully this is now fixed!
I ran the compression and leakdown tests and the results were good (as expected) the worst cylinder was only leaking 12% @50 psi. compression was also even and around 160 psi. I then pulled the intake and found 7 of the 8 intake ports absolutely soaking in oil! The engine only had about 600 miles on it at this point since the rebuild and dyno so all of this carbon/sludge/crap accumulated in just that short amount of time while drinking a quart of Joe Gibb's finest ever hundred miles. Here's what it looked like inside.

[70Sbird]

Since the heads are ported and the edelbrock intake looked to also be pushing the intake valley pan out of alignment I checked the mating of the intake (was new) to the heads and found .008" of an inch more clearance at hte bottom of each mating surface than the top. I ended up having the intake angles milled to bring the mating sealing surfaces back into alignment and buying an intake valley plate and seperate intake gaskets. I also ditched the stamped Mopar Performance rocker arms (that were measured at an actual 1.3: 1 ratio!) for some PRW 1.5:1 stainless steel rockers. Hopefully that will get my camshaft opening the valves as intended now and should also improve my performance.

[70Sbird]

So.....
After another 6 months of the car being down, I finallly got things buttoned up and running again - almost two years to the day of opening the engine up for the first time and deciding to go completely through it after finding a damaged crank and other issues. The car fired right up and seems a bit "lopier" at idle. I reset the timing and carb, checked everything out and hopefully am ready for a season of driving again.
Now if spring and dry roads would only hurry up and get here I'm anxious for a test drive!

[TheAutoArchaeologist]

So when are we going barn find hunting again?  I am heading over to Macomb this Spring....

I'm happy to hear that the Blue Bird is in tip top shape again.  I can't wait to see her out and about.

[Dave Kanofsky]

Good Luck Scott!

A good break in road trip would be the MoPower Madness show:

May 19, 2013 MoPower Madness Car Show & Swap at Dupage County Fairgrounds 9am -4pm
2015 Manchester Rd. Wheaton, IL. 60187 Ron - 630-553-2203

http://www.chicagolandmopar.com/forum/content.php