My motor has been burning oil since it has been in. It burns oil to the tune of a quart every 90-100 miles. It smokes like a mosquito killer at start up. Everything was done to the t on the build everything torqued right in the right orientation everything. Well I was filing a ring and it snapped this leads me to believe maybe there was another one that was cracked that made it into the motor and is causing this. It only smokes really bad at start up after it has idled for a 20 or seconds it just has a little white haze coming out. Well I went up to Closet Rednecks house on Sunday night to wire up my gauges and on my way back I raced a couple of cars well the last run went well past 120 and when I let out of it there was a ticking noise. Sounds exactly like when a rocker backs out which is very possible since I didnt use loc tite on the threads of the rocker studs when I assembled the motor. Anyway today I pulled the rockers of cleaned them loc tite and torqued them down. I started the truck up and no smoke cloud It has been sitting for 4 days and hasnt been started so it should ahve smoked alot but it didnt. Just barely anything coming out the tailpipe. This baffles me and have no idea what is going on. Honestly the only thing I can think of is bad rings. I already replaced the pcv valve that didnt help, its not leaking oil on the ground or anywhere I can see on the motor, bellhousing is dry as a bone inside so the rear seal is fine. I dont have a clue. Anybody have any insight as to what may or may not be going on here. I am planning on pulling the motor in a couple of months anyway so its not that big a deal but it would be nice for it to run right and not drink oil.

 

Cody, if you had a cracked ring, you would have a cylinder that was down on compression, not so much a oil consumption problem as the 2 cast ring don't really control oil flow that's what the bottom ring is for.

From what your saying, sounds a lot more like valve seals than rings. Smoke on start-up is defiantly tail tail sign of valve sealing problem. Try replacing the valve seals and then see what you get.

 

I would say valve seals also. Smoking right after startup indicates oil getting into the cylinder from the heads. It cannot flow up past the rings. A bum oil ring will smoke at about the same level all the time. Did you install the valve stem seals? There are two different colored ones. One is higher heat and has to go onto the exhaust valve. If they were to be mixed up they would fail. Just a thought.

 

I concur, sounds like the seals.

 

Seals are the ones that came on it factory from DART. Ill check when I pull the valve covers later and see if they are mixed up. I know smoke a start up would mean valve seals but damn thay are brand new from DART. I did have the combustion chambers cleaned up mabye the guy put the seals on the wrong valves. I dont know. Damn thing is making the ticking noise again like it was before I retorqued the rockers. One of them has come loose again which I really dont see how I used loc tite and torqued them down good. I may have killed a rocker. It was silent when I started it back up then after beating on it for a little bit and driving about 20 miles it started coming back. It sounds like a lifter isnt pumped up or something. I hope I havent killed a lifter that would make me sick. None of the rockers felt like they had excessive play in them. What I was saying about the rings is maybe one is broke in there and is gouging the **** out of the cylinder and its burning it that way. I dont know. If I get frisky I may try valve guide seals, I just hate to have to pull the damn springs Im lazy. I need to figure out what is ticking or else Im not driving it down to Houston to run it.

 

I third that, Hope you get it figd out, BTW how she run on your 120 mph blasts?

 

Run a quick compression test on it, that will tell you if you have a week or scarred cylinder.

 

Yeah I will just lazy thats all. Im going to pull a cover in a little bit after everything cools down good.

TIM it ran really damn good it pegged the escalade cluster quick. Ill get some in cab videos whenever I can get all these other problems taken care of and get it tuned up right.

 

SWEET!, I love big block cubes out of small blocks! i want a stroker! your truck is gonna f n destroy **** when you get it right.

 

Valve stem seals would be the #1 culprit. You never said it smoked at start up. Often in race applications the exhaust valve seal is left off to allow for proper lube on the guides. Nitrous & FI engines that cause the exhaust valve to heat up much more can cause the valve to gauld the guide or actually stick in the guide and not close all the way if it gets too hot and not lubed properly. Maybe they left off the exhaust seals for that reason.
If you have a second ring broken your compression check could check out fine. just a thought to keep in mind. It happened to me before. There is a chance of breaking a ring upon install in the cyl. I wasn't there the last couple of times you assemble it so I have no insight into that.