The usual problem about smoker engine

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danielepiacenza

Well-known member
Joined
May 28, 2010
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Hi guys,
this my problem (or one of my problems): my car "eat" a lot of oil, around 1 quarter in 300 mil. if a push hard.:eek::push:

I have a '71 454. The engine is all maching, also the heads, the pistons are JF forged and the cam is Lunati voodoo mild.

The engine have 5K mil. on it because it was rebuilt less than a year ago in US with an overbored 0,30.



The problem is not in the heads because I don't see black smoke out of the exaust when the engine "go down" (I don't know the correct word, sorry), I see waste from the exaust when I push fast my foot. The smoke is not very dark black. On the rear bumpers I can find a little bit of oil deposit.:suicide:

My thinking is there is a error in the overbored work or the rings are wrong on the pistons. The car run great and the period for the brack in of the rings is end. The idle is good and flat and I don't have "hole" in the acceleration from any range of RPM. I have fear if I don't do nothing, in the future the problem will be bigger. What is the normal consumption of oil in 1000 miles?

In the next days I will inspect the spark plugs and their colors, but the fear is "around me". Someone tell to me that is possible the problem is a miss aligment of the carburator intake. Is possible in your opinion? What do you do if you are in my clothes?

Help me.:sos:

Bye
Daniele
 

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Long time ago, I had a problem with mystery oil consumption on a new 355 roller engine I had built here in Florida....drove me krazy, short trip I know...at any rate, it was eventually traced to the ANGLE MILL job done on the heads, in an effort to increase compression....the key to it was the careful examination of the intake gaskets, oil soak was evident on them and the bottom of the induction passages in the head, but not so much on the intake mani itself...but there was some there too....

another thing is can be is super hard rings, not seated yet....some of them take forever and a decade to seat right...PIA....

maybe check for proper operation of the PCV valve too....any oil leaks? positive crank pressure forces oil out in the stupidest spots....

:amazed::thumbs:
 
Oil on the rear bumper is a usual sign of a leak.

Paraurti posteriore olio sulla abituale è un segno di una fuga.

Look at the oil pressure sender and filter

Guardare la pressione olio mittente e filtro

Then the rear main seal, rocker covers, rear of the intake.

Poi il principale posteriore sigillo, rocker copre, posteriore dell'assunzione

If there are no leaks, then worry about the rest

Se non vi sono fughe, allora vi preoccupate per il resto

I don't speak Italiano, but Babylon does!!
Just trying to help-= I know how difficult it is to get your point across in a different language!
 
Thanks,
The pressure is hight, around 68,70 psi. It's real because I have 2 gauges for take care of the engine, one old original and one digital new with new sensor.

The old owners said he instal a oil hight-pump, but I'm not sure. Probably there is a leak in the rings and the pressure go down in the block infact there is a lot of blow-by from the filter on the valve cover.

Normaly, with a engine like mine, what is the normal oil consumption?
 
In the invoices I recieved with the car, I find the ones attach. You can see the past owners first have buyed a set of rings, but when he went to rebuilt the block, the company have build all, with roads, pistons and rings. He said to me that is better far have a good job and not mismach the size of the rings. This is correct, but is true that now I have a problem.

Do you understand something from the invoice? There is the serious possibility I don't understand well for the problem of language.

Bye
 

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Looks to me like the po first bought some standard size rings and was jusst going torering the engine, then he found out it needed to be bored and bought the .030 overs.
I do not see a return credit for the standards, so there is a chance they got installed, which could only appen if the machine shop did not check the end gap of the rings.

from your descripton I believe you have 'blow by" which is almost always caused by incorrect sealing of the piston rings. The high oil comumption and the oily film on the rear of the car around the exhaust tips leads me to this opinion.


Back in the day an oem bbc was considered to have normal oil consumption if using a quart every 1000 miles and was not eligable for a warrantee rebuild.
 
Ozzy said:
Looks to me like the po first bought some standard size rings and was jusst going torering the engine, then he found out it needed to be bored and bought the .030 overs.
I do not see a return credit for the standards, so there is a chance they got installed, which could only appen if the machine shop did not check the end gap of the rings.

from your descripton I believe you have 'blow by" which is almost always caused by incorrect sealing of the piston rings. The high oil comumption and the oily film on the rear of the car around the exhaust tips leads me to this opinion.


Back in the day an oem bbc was considered to have normal oil consumption if using a quart every 1000 miles and was not eligable for a warrantee rebuild.
Click to expand...

My engine is more thirsty then the normal, a lot more!!:drink::mobeer:

In your opinion, probably the ring is not install in the correct way ... is possible, but if is this the case, how cuold I operating for have a good result? Is necessary take out the heads...:mad:

Someone tell me that the best way is put oil when is necessary, but I hate have a car "lame":crutches:(with poblems behind the hood)
 
My 70 BB used oil at 1 quart about every 5 hundred miles. When accelerating, you could see the bluish smoke in the rear view mirror. You could see it better at dusk. A plug or 2 was also fouling. Turned out to be cracked ring in #1.

It is bored 30 over now and doesn't use any noticeable amount of oil.

And as for performance.....it ran well with all that oil consumption as long as I changed the fouled plugs every once in a while.
 
OK, daniele, I reread your post a couple times but I'm not sure I understood what you were saying. Did you say you could see smoke? If so, was it blue or black? I caught that you found oily, black residue on the rear bumpers and 1qt every 300 miles does seem like an aweful lot.
Do you have any external oil leaks?
I would be concerned about those rings also. Do you have any warranty on the engine? If not, there is one last ditch thing you could try. This is seriously a last ditch effort if your rings just won't seal and that's to blow a little talcum powder into the carburator. The powder will act like an abrasive and help the rings seat.
You need to know that this is the last thing to try before tearing down the engine since you are intentionally wearing the rings and bores.
 
SmokinBBC said:
My 70 BB used oil at 1 quart about every 5 hundred miles. When accelerating, you could see the bluish smoke in the rear view mirror. You could see it better at dusk. A plug or 2 was also fouling. Turned out to be cracked ring in #1.

It is bored 30 over now and doesn't use any noticeable amount of oil.

And as for performance.....it ran well with all that oil consumption as long as I changed the fouled plugs every once in a while.
Click to expand...

How did you craked the rings?
That is a mystery, all is like a ring faul, but my plugs are not faul ...:surrender:

Didi you say your engine had the same perfarmance first and after the bored?
 
clutchdust said:
OK, daniele, I reread your post a couple times but I'm not sure I understood what you were saying. Did you say you could see smoke? If so, was it blue or black? I caught that you found oily, black residue on the rear bumpers and 1qt every 300 miles does seem like an aweful lot.
Do you have any external oil leaks?
I would be concerned about those rings also. Do you have any warranty on the engine? If not, there is one last ditch thing you could try. This is seriously a last ditch effort if your rings just won't seal and that's to blow a little talcum powder into the carburator. The powder will act like an abrasive and help the rings seat.
You need to know that this is the last thing to try before tearing down the engine since you are intentionally wearing the rings and bores.
Click to expand...

The smoke is blue and I can see better at dusk. The engine was built in FL, 01/20/2009, but now I'm in Italy. Do you have to know that from the firs oil change i put iside 20w50 mineral oil addittivated for Harley shifter. All for seat the rings well. This consumption is with this kind of oil, if I will change with a 10w40 (example) what the consumption will become? :smash:

About the talcum powder ... I don't know. I'm little afraid, but I think on it.

Thanks for interesting:)
 
Blue smoke is certainly burning oil. I understand why you would want to wait on the powder. It is very much a last ditch effort.
I'm not familiar with the Harley additive so I have no comment on that.
I'm afraid at this point it looks like heads are going to have to come off before you find the source of this problem. Hopefully it's something simple like careless ring orientation during installation. I sincerely hope that it's not more serious. However, if it is, it would be better to catch it now.
 
most likely the rings for some reason ever seated, and at this point most likely wont.

dumping an abrasive down the intake is an old skool idea that was reportedly used to try and get chrome rings to seat. I never heard of any success, just the stories of how to do it.
I would not even suggest thinking about it with moly rings.


It is possible that the rings were installed upside down or the assembler "rolled" the rings on to the pistons which puts a radial twist in the rings

I would suggest doing a cylinder leak down test to verify.

http://www.meyerracingonline.com/leak.html
 
I had a similar problem with my 350 engine. It used about a quart of oil every 400 miles. It did this and I contiunued to drive it for a long time while trying to find an easy fix. It had about 4K mile on a previous rebuild by someone else. Before tearing the engine down I asked my engine machinist his opinion if there was any blow-by. I was suspect there were broken rings, but there never seemed to be enough blow-by to confirm the rings. His opinion was the rings were OK and the oil loss was from another source. When you pulled the pcv, held your hand agasinst the hole while the engine reved, there wasn't enough pressure to confirm broken rings.

After tearing the engine down this is what I found: The compression rings fell off seven of the pistons as soon as being pulled out of the bore. I concluded the rings were not file fit properly and broke when heat expanded them. The engine had been rebuilt by someone without an overbore, so it was clean inside. Next, someone had done what they thought was a gasket 'port match' on the intake and heads. They did not open the ports to produce a square edge with larger ports, but simply rounded the edge to meet the gasket and produced a poor match. The intake was not sealing to the heads and sucking oil from the lifter valley. The intake ports all had a black oil burn residue in them to confirm this.

My engine did not produce any smoke that I could ever see, but left an oily residue at the back of the car. It is hard to say what is producing your oil useage, but don't rule out what was causing my oil loss. I hope this helps some and good luck!
 
Ozzy said:
most likely the rings for some reason ever seated, and at this point most likely wont.

dumping an abrasive down the intake is an old skool idea that was reportedly used to try and get chrome rings to seat. I never heard of any success, just the stories of how to do it.
I would not even suggest thinking about it with moly rings.


It is possible that the rings were installed upside down or the assembler "rolled" the rings on to the pistons which puts a radial twist in the rings

I would suggest doing a cylinder leak down test to verify.

http://www.meyerracingonline.com/leak.html
Click to expand...

I have a friend that have the gauge for the pressure in the cylinder, I know is not the same, but is a good test for be sure that all cylinder is egual.
 
Red said:
I had a similar problem with my 350 engine. It used about a quart of oil every 400 miles. It did this and I contiunued to drive it for a long time while trying to find an easy fix. It had about 4K mile on a previous rebuild by someone else. Before tearing the engine down I asked my engine machinist his opinion if there was any blow-by. I was suspect there were broken rings, but there never seemed to be enough blow-by to confirm the rings. His opinion was the rings were OK and the oil loss was from another source. When you pulled the pcv, held your hand agasinst the hole while the engine reved, there wasn't enough pressure to confirm broken rings.

After tearing the engine down this is what I found: The compression rings fell off seven of the pistons as soon as being pulled out of the bore. I concluded the rings were not file fit properly and broke when heat expanded them. The engine had been rebuilt by someone without an overbore, so it was clean inside. Next, someone had done what they thought was a gasket 'port match' on the intake and heads. They did not open the ports to produce a square edge with larger ports, but simply rounded the edge to meet the gasket and produced a poor match. The intake was not sealing to the heads and sucking oil from the lifter valley. The intake ports all had a black oil burn residue in them to confirm this.

My engine did not produce any smoke that I could ever see, but left an oily residue at the back of the car. It is hard to say what is producing your oil useage, but don't rule out what was causing my oil loss. I hope this helps some and good luck!
Click to expand...

I am quite sure of the cylindr bored because I have the purcase of that. Is strange that you dont see smoke in rear of car with 7 rings broken.
But what was the condition of your cylinders when you inspect them?
 
danielepiacenza said:
Ozzy said:
most likely the rings for some reason ever seated, and at this point most likely wont.

dumping an abrasive down the intake is an old skool idea that was reportedly used to try and get chrome rings to seat. I never heard of any success, just the stories of how to do it.
I would not even suggest thinking about it with moly rings.


It is possible that the rings were installed upside down or the assembler "rolled" the rings on to the pistons which puts a radial twist in the rings

I would suggest doing a cylinder leak down test to verify.

http://www.meyerracingonline.com/leak.html
Click to expand...

I have a friend that have the gauge for the pressure in the cylinder, I know is not the same, but is a good test for be sure that all cylinder is egual.
Click to expand...

If your friends gauqe is a compression gauge it will not tell you what you are looking for if the rings are oil coated as a false reading will result.
 
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